A very common problem is when people speak a language other than the language which they are accustomed; syllables can be spoken for longer or shorter than the listener would regard as appropriate. An example of this can be observed when people who have a heavy Japanese accent speak English. Since Japanese words end with vowels, there is a tendency for native Japanese to add a vowel sound to the end of English words that should end with a consonant. Illustratively, native Japanese speakers often pronounce 'orange' as 'orenji.' The inventions provides an automatic speech-correcting process that would not necessarily need to know that fruit is being discussed; the system would only need to know that the speaker is accustomed to Japanese, that the listener is accustomed to English, that 'orenji' is not a word in English and that 'orenji' is a typical Japanese mispronunciation of the English word 'orange.' The invention identifies one or more distinct speech events in received speech and using a knowledge base to determine an incorrect syllable duration caused by mispronunciation, adjusts the mispronunciation to one or more of lengthen, shorten, emphasize or deemphasize a misspoken syllable.
Automatic normalization of spoken syllable duration