Arrangement for increasing the comprehension of speech when translating speech from a first language to a second language

• US 5,546,500 A
• Filed: 05/05/1994
• Issued: 08/13/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Telia AB (Government of Norway)
• Inventors: Lyberg, Bertil
• Primary Examiner(s): TUNG, KEE M
• Application Number:
  US08/238,732
• Time in Patent Office: 831 Days
• Field of Search: 395/2.29, 395/2.4, 395/2.44, 395/2.6, 395/2.67, 395/2.69, 395/2.86, 395/2.77, 381/36, 381/43, 381/44, 381/51, 381/52, 364/419.02, 364/419.03
• US Class Current: 704/277
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination

Abstract

An arrangement for improved speech comprehension in artificial translation of one language to a second language. The arrangement comprises an analysis unit which carries out an analysis of duration and fundamental tone of the speech in the first language. A prosody-interpreting unit determines, on the basis of the analysis and language-characteristic information, prosody-dependent information in the first speech which is used by a prosody-generating unit for the second language for controlling the speech synthesis. A speech synthesis element thus produces stresses in the speech translated in the second language which, from a language point of view, correspond to stresses in the first language.

Claims

1. Arrangement for increasing comprehension of speech when translating speech from a first language to a second language, comprising

elements for receiving speech in a first language, a translation unit for translating speech in the first language to a second language, and speech synthesis elements for generating speech in the second language, characterized in that the arrangement also comprises

an analysis unit which analyzes variations in fundamental tone and duration of the speech in the first language,

a prosody-interpreting unit which determines first prosody-dependent information in dependence on said analysis unit and on language-characteristic information which relates to the first language,

a prosody-generating unit which generates second prosody-dependent information with a starting point from the first prosody-dependent information and from language-characteristic information which relates to the second language, which second prosody-dependent information is used by the speech synthesis element for producing stresses in the second language corresponding to stresses in the speech in the first language.

2. Arrangement according to claim 1, characterized in that the receiving element comprises a speech recognition element which converts the first speech into text, the translation unit translating text in the first language into text in the second language, and in that the speech synthesis element comprises a text-to-speech converting element.