The accurate phonetic transcription is very important for different fields of speech technologies. In speech synthesis, it is the benchmark for the voice segmentation, and therefore one of the crucial points for the synthesized speech pronunciation quality. In ASR the availability of matching phonetic transcription allows a higher recognition precision. Use of different dictionaries could impro...

This paper presents a new approach for developing pronunciation tutors in Second Language (L2) learning. Applying the Basic Identification of Confusable Contexts (BICC) procedure we automatically generate curriculum that is rich in possible confusion contexts which can be practiced by L2 students in read-aloud tasks. This is the basis of a new pronunciation tutor where the student interacts ora...

We present a pronunciation error detection method for second language learners of English (L2 learners). The method is a combination of confidence scoring and landmark-based Support Vector Machines (SVMs). Landmark-based SVMs were implemented to specialize the method for the specific phonemes with which L2 learners make frequent errors. The method was trained for the difficult phonemes for Kore...

Learning to pronounce new speech sounds is difficult. Visual feedback helps in identifying the errors and indicating the achieved progress. The Vowel Game uses a visualization method that symbolizes the vocal tract. This instructs the user on how to adjust e.g. the tongue position during pronunciation. It gives information about the correctness and goodness of the uttered vowel. Preliminary eva...

Over the years, sophisticated techniques for utilizing the prior knowledge in the form of text-derived language model and in pronunciation lexicon evolved. However, their use has an undesirable effect: unexpected lexical items (words) in the phrase are replaced by acoustically acceptable in-vocabulary items [1]. This is the major source of error since the replacement often introduces additional...

computer-assisted language learning (call) is reaching an up most position in the pedagogical field of english as a second or foreign language (esl/efl). the present study was carried out to study the effect of using phonetic websites on iranian efl students’ pronunciation and knowledge of phonemic symbols. participants of the study included 30 efl female pre-intermediate students studying in k...

This paper describes an approach to identifying the reasons that speech recognition errors occur. The algorithm presented requires an accurate word transcript of the utterances being analyzed. It places errors into one of the categories: 1) due to outof-vocabulary (OOV) word spoken, 2) search error, 3) homophone substitution, 4) language model overwhelming correct acoustics, 5) transcript/pronu...

This paper proposes an Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993) [OT]-based generator of the Interlanguage [IL]1 syllabification of Korean speakers of English. Basically, I accept the ideas of 'cyclic CON-EVAL loop' and 'locally encoded finite candidate set' proposed by Hammond (1995, 1997b). However, in order to treat some features of Korean accented English such as vowel epenthesis, segmen...

this study aimed at investigating the impact of utilizing call on efl learners’ foreign accent reduction. to this end, 62 participants out of 100 undergraduate freshman english students at islamic azad university central tehran branch were ed based on a piloted sample pet and a text-to-read. the ed participants were then nonrandomly assigned to an experimental and a control group, each containi...

We have developed an English pronunciation learning system which estimates the intelligibility of students’ speech and ranks their errors from the viewpoint of improving their intelligibility. We have begun using this system in a CALL class at Kyoto University. We have evaluated system performance through the use of questionnaires and analysis of speech data logged in the server, and will prese...