This is so cool. Real-time accent feedback is something language learners have never had throughout all of human history, until now.
Along similar lines, it would be useful to map a speaker's vowels in vowel-space (and likewise for consonants?) to compare native to non-native speakers.
I can't wait until something like this is available for Japanese.
The approach in the article is roughly equivalent to having someone listen to you speak and then repeating back in their own voice so you can attempt to copy their accent. Certainly nice to have available on demand without needing to coordinate schedules with another human.
A good accent coach would be able to do much better by identifying exactly how you're pronouncing things differently, telling you what you should be doing in your mouth to change that, and giving you targeted exercises to practice.
Presumably a model that predicts the position of various articulators at every timestamp in a recording could be useful for something similar.
> something language learners have never had throughout all of human history
.. unless they had access to a native speaker and/or vocal coach? While an automated Henry Higgins is nifty, it's not something humans haven't been able to do themselves.
Native speakers are less helpful at this than you might think. Speech coaches are absolutely the way to go, but they're outside the price range for most people ($200+/hr for a good coach). BoldVoice gives coach-level feedback and instruction at a price point that everyone can access, on demand.
Not yet - this was our first technical blog post. You can check out the BoldVoice app and test out the sound-level feedback yourself. Or watch this app walkthrough video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sv5K4Z9P4c
You can take a language class rather than have a personal instructor. Although accents are a sensitive topic so I don't remember mine going into it much.
As someone who took English classes for years growing up, I wish that were the case. In fact, most teachers don't really know how to teach pronunciation. Also, in a typical group class setting, it's challenging to give each student one-on-one feedback. On BoldVoice, we solve that with 1) unlimited instant feedback from sound-level AI - your most patient coach. 2) in-depth video lessons from the best coaches in the world (Hollywood accent coaches). I'm a cofounder of BoldVoice, by the way. :)
Try learning a language where they won't understand you with a foreign accent. I assume tonal languages are like this but haven't tried learning any.
Japanese is sort of like this - you have to say foreign words the Japanese way very forcibly, to the point that Americans will think you're being racist if they hear you do it.
That's a fascinating idea! Definitely something to try out for our team. We actively and continuously do all sorts of experiments with our machine learning models to be able to extract the most useful insights. We will definitely share if we find something useful here.
Along similar lines, it would be useful to map a speaker's vowels in vowel-space (and likewise for consonants?) to compare native to non-native speakers.
I can't wait until something like this is available for Japanese.