diff --git a/src/libespeak-ng/speech.c b/src/libespeak-ng/speech.c
index 9102a657..c916f864 100644
--- a/src/libespeak-ng/speech.c
+++ b/src/libespeak-ng/speech.c
@@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ int GetFileLength(const char *filename)
 	struct stat statbuf;
 
 	if (stat(filename, &statbuf) != 0)
-		return 0;
+		return -errno;
 
 	if (S_ISDIR(statbuf.st_mode))
 		return -EISDIR;