Method and system for assessing pronunciation difficulties of non-native speakers by entropy calculation
First Claim
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1. A computer-implemented method of assessing pronunciation difficulties of a non-native speaker, the method comprising:
- determining one or more sources of pronunciation difficulties between a language of a non-native speaker and a second language;
assigning a weight to each source;
calculating using a processor a phonetic difficulty score based on the one or more sources and the weight assigned to each source;
calculating using the processor a language model score based on a sound comparison between the language of the non-native speaker and the second language, including calculating a language model for the language of the non-native speaker and the second language and calculating a cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker inversely weighted by the cross-entropy of the utterance with respect to the language model of the second language, wherein calculating the cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker comprises assigning a lower score to utterances of the second language that are similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker, and assigning a higher score to utterances of the second language that are not similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker;
normalizing using the processor the phonetic difficulty score and the language model score; and
calculating a metric from the normalized phonetic difficulty score and the normalized language model score.
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Abstract
The present disclosure presents a useful metric for assessing the relative difficulty which non-native speakers face in pronouncing a given utterance and a method and systems for using such a metric in the evaluation and assessment of the utterances of non-native speakers. In an embodiment, the metric may be based on both known sources of difficulty for language learners and a corpus-based measure of cross-language sound differences. The method may be applied to speakers who primarily speak a first language speaking utterances in any non-native second language.
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Citations
18 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method of assessing pronunciation difficulties of a non-native speaker, the method comprising:
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determining one or more sources of pronunciation difficulties between a language of a non-native speaker and a second language; assigning a weight to each source; calculating using a processor a phonetic difficulty score based on the one or more sources and the weight assigned to each source; calculating using the processor a language model score based on a sound comparison between the language of the non-native speaker and the second language, including calculating a language model for the language of the non-native speaker and the second language and calculating a cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker inversely weighted by the cross-entropy of the utterance with respect to the language model of the second language, wherein calculating the cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker comprises assigning a lower score to utterances of the second language that are similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker, and assigning a higher score to utterances of the second language that are not similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker; normalizing using the processor the phonetic difficulty score and the language model score; and calculating a metric from the normalized phonetic difficulty score and the normalized language model score. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A system for assessing the pronunciation difficulties of a non-native speaker comprising:
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a processor; and a processor-readable storage medium in communication with the processor, wherein the processor-readable storage medium contains one or more programming instructions for causing the processor to perform a method of assessing the pronunciation difficulties of a non-native speaker, the method comprising; determining one or more sources of pronunciation difficulties between a language of a non-native speaker and a second language, assigning a weight to each source, calculating a phonetic difficulty score based on the one or more sources and the weight assigned to each source, calculating a language model score based on a sound comparison between the language of the non-native speaker and the second language, by calculating a language model for the language of the non-native speaker and the second language and calculating a cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker inversely weighted by the cross-entropy of the utterance with respect to the language model of the second language, wherein calculating the cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker comprises assigning a lower score to utterances of the second language that are similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker, and assigning a higher score to utterances of the second language that are not similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker, normalizing the phonetic difficulty score and the language model score, and calculating a metric from the normalized phonetic difficulty score and the normalized language model score. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A non-transitory processor-readable storage medium for assessing pronunciation difficulties of a non-native speaker, comprising computer-executable instructions, which when executed cause a processing system to execute steps comprising:
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determining one or more sources of pronunciation difficulties between a language of a non-native speaker and a second language, assigning a weight to each source, calculating a phonetic difficulty score based on the one or more sources and the weight assigned to each source, calculating a language model score based on a sound comparison between the language of the non-native speaker and the second language, by calculating a language model for the language of the non-native speaker and the second language and calculating a cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker inversely weighted by the cross-entropy of the utterance with respect to the language model of the second language, wherein calculating the cross-entropy of an utterance with respect to the language model of the language of the non-native speaker comprises assigning a lower score to utterances of the second language that are similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker, and assigning a higher score to utterances of the second language that are not similar to sounds of the language of the non-native speaker, normalizing the phonetic difficulty score and the language model score, and calculating a metric from the normalized phonetic difficulty score and the normalized language model score. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification