diff --git a/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/default.nix
index 46d13ff6910ee..e8ad860026a21 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/default.nix
@@ -41,10 +41,17 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
       hash = "sha256-KfzqnRyQfz6nuMKnsHoUzb9rn9h/Pg54mupW1Cr+Zx0=";
     })
   ] ++ lib.optionals mbrolaSupport [
-    # Hardcode correct mbrola paths.
+    # Hardcode correct mbrola path.
     (substituteAll {
       src = ./mbrola.patch;
-      mbrola = mbrola.combined;
+      inherit mbrola;
+    })
+
+    # Pick up mbrola voices from XDG_DATA_DIRS to reduce closure size.
+    # https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/pull/1948
+    (fetchpatch {
+      url = "https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/commit/7d31736c04e1bdd86f59e158a15be5e0f4a5b0cd.patch";
+      hash = "sha256-phVQeEjhm8gCZta3TARPleDtTKPGqXGUMaTQsjc9zlw=";
     })
   ];
 
diff --git a/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/mbrola.patch b/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/mbrola.patch
index c88c814b791cc..32919fdba73f8 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/mbrola.patch
+++ b/pkgs/applications/audio/espeak-ng/mbrola.patch
@@ -9,14 +9,3 @@
  		       voice_path, "-", "-.wav", (char *)NULL);
  		/* if execution reaches this point then the exec() failed */
  		snprintf(mbr_errorbuf, sizeof(mbr_errorbuf),
---- a/src/libespeak-ng/synth_mbrola.c
-+++ b/src/libespeak-ng/synth_mbrola.c
-@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@
- 	if (!load_MBR())
- 		return ENS_MBROLA_NOT_FOUND;
- 
--	sprintf(path, "%s/mbrola/%s", path_home, mbrola_voice);
-+	sprintf(path, "@mbrola@/share/mbrola/%s/%s", mbrola_voice, mbrola_voice);
- #ifdef PLATFORM_POSIX
- 	// if not found, then also look in
- 	//   usr/share/mbrola/xx, /usr/share/mbrola/xx/xx, /usr/share/mbrola/voices/xx
diff --git a/pkgs/by-name/mb/mbrola/package.nix b/pkgs/by-name/mb/mbrola/package.nix
index 8a3062ecd455e..20ea3ceba32c8 100644
--- a/pkgs/by-name/mb/mbrola/package.nix
+++ b/pkgs/by-name/mb/mbrola/package.nix
@@ -2,8 +2,6 @@
   lib,
   stdenv,
   fetchFromGitHub,
-  mbrola-voices,
-  runCommandLocal,
 }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
@@ -28,14 +26,6 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
     runHook postInstall
   '';
 
-  passthru = {
-    combined = runCommandLocal "mbrola-combined-${finalAttrs.version}" { inherit (finalAttrs) meta; } ''
-      mkdir -p "$out/"
-      ln -s '${mbrola-voices}/share' "$out/"
-      ln -s '${finalAttrs.finalPackage}/bin' "$out/"
-    '';
-  };
-
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "Speech synthesizer based on the concatenation of diphones";
     homepage = "https://github.com/numediart/MBROLA";