Oh no that's not what I want... It appears to be working on my end and I gave it like 2 months of testing before uploading, but didn't really test it on Linux at all and barely on Mac.
Intended function is that it says "F2 to enable speech." Then if you press F2 it says speech on. There are several things you could try like pressing F1 after clicking on a note to hear the help spiel. Which shouldn't say anything if you press twice. I think V5 will have a window pop up when speech is off to confirm.
I don't know if the setting saves unless you press Ctrl + S. First major q I'll ask, what OS are you running? I know Mac and maybe Linux have delays to their speech in the OS code that makes it hard to work with.