Introducing Articulatory Anchor-Point To Ann Training For Corrective Learning Of Pronunciation

We describe computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) through the visualization of the articulatory gestures from learner's speech in this paper. Typical CAPT systems cannot indicate how the learner can correct his/her articulation. The proposed system enables the learner to study how to correct their pronunciation by comparing the wrongly pronounced gesture with a correctly pronounced gesture. In this system, a multi-layer neural network (MLN) is used to convert the learner's speech into the coordinates for a vocal tract using Magnetic Resonance Imaging data. Then, an animation is generated using the values of the vocal tract coordinates. Moreover, we improved the animations by introducing an anchor-point for a phoneme to MLN training. The new system could even generate accurate CG animations from the English speech by Japanese people in the experiment.