Audio does not complete when called from another function

Question

I have the following code quasi-working

from gtts import gTTS
import speech_recognition as rs
import pyaudio
import audioop
import os
import math
from os import system
import threading
from datetime import datetime

def say(text):

    filename = 'speak.mp3'
    language = 'en'      
    myobj = gTTS(text=text, lang=language, slow=False)  
    myobj.save(filename) 
    player = vlc.MediaPlayer(filename)
    player.play()
               
def listen(x):
    r=rs.Recognizer()
    with rs.Microphone() as source:
        audio=r.listen(source)
    try:
        text = r.recognize_google(audio)
        process(text.lower())
    except:
            system('say I did not get that. Please say again.')
            listen(0)

def process(text):
    print(text)
    # Do things here based on text
    if 'what time is it' in text:
        say(datetime.now().strftime("%H%M"))
    return

#process("what time is it") "Seventeen oh six"
# Listen for me to say something, if I say 'what time is it' return the time
#listen(0)                  "Se"

If I run process(text) manually such as:

process("what time is it")

Python will speak back to me something like "1706" (Seventeen oh six) However, if I call it from the listen() function python will start to play the file but it gets cut off and is more like "Se" and then nothing.

I've tried multiple things including using time.sleep(n) but no changes seem to make the entire file play when called through the listen(n) function.