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0001 <!-- 0002 Copyright 2013-2019 Andreas Cord-Landwehr <cordlandwehr@kde.org> 0003 SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 0004 --> 0005 0006 Concept for ArtiKulate (Pronunciation Self-Teaching) 0007 0008 Problem Statement and Goal 0009 ========================== 0010 When learning a new language, usually the following skills must be accomplished: writing, reading, speaking, and understanding. For writing and reading a lot of materials and software programs (e.g., Parley for learning vocabulary) exist. But the important field of speaking and correct pronunciation of words and sentences is barely considered, yet, though it is one of the most important skills in real life. Hence this proposal is about an application that allows self-learning and improvement of pronunciation skills, which is usually only possible with the help of native (or at least very fluent) speakers that correct the learner. 0011 0012 Sketch 0013 ====== 0014 We part the functionality of the software into the part of the learner and the part of the teacher/native speaker who can provide teaching material. 0015 0016 Learner 0017 ======= 0018 The learner select its learning language and downloads a pronunciation training for her language (Hot-New-Stuff or similar). The learning material is a set of words/phrases/sentences/paragraphs that are tagged by specific difficult pronunciation characters (e.g., "th" in English) and categorized by their difficulty (length of the text). Each text string has a sound file that contains the speaking of this phrase, recorded by a native speaker. The student then selects a difficulty level to start with and optionally a specific pronunciation he wants to improve. Then the program displays a list of phrases and with each the student can perform: 0019 1. read the phrase 0020 2. play the sound file 0021 3. read the phrase herself and record that speaking 0022 4. play her own recording and compare herself if this is similar to the native speaker's pronunciation 0023 5. these steps can arbitrarily repeated and interleaved 0024 0025 Teacher/Native Speaker 0026 ====================== 0027 On the other side we need an editor functionality where a native speaker writes phrases, tags and categorize them, and record the speaking of them. Also it is necessary to allow an easy merge with existing files and an easy exchange interface to provide files to students (by Hot-New-Stuff or e.g. the Plasma Active Market). 0028 0029 Similar Programs 0030 ================ 0031 There exist similar commercial programs that are available for a few specific languages (e.g., "Son pour Son" for French, "....???" for English). But none of this programs is freely available and they lack of an availability of a broad scheme of teaching materials. 0032 0033 Open Problems 0034 ============= 0035 Though the basic functionality of the software is quite simple, the main task is to form a userbase (at least for a very few languages at start) where we have native speakers who help to contribute recordings and who take care that the recordings (and if we possibly ship a default teaching material file for a language, that the recordings are of good quality and correct). So, besides the programming part the following task somehow must be solved: 0036 1. provide initial teaching material for at least a few languages 0037 2. integrate language teachers that actually use this software and by this have an incentive to provide/improve the pronunciation material 0038 3. provide very simple ways to exchange and provide teaching material (it could also be a way to allow teaching material providers to provide their material by the Plasma Active Bodega market). 0039 4. provide a Windows version to allow this software to be used in language learning centers (they use mainly Windows and cannot easily switch, since all other software operates on Windows) 0040 0041 0042 TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS 0043 0044 Language Specification Files 0045 ---------------------------- 0046 For each language we need a specification file that states 0047 - TAGs for specific prononciation patterns 0048 - links to further language education material 0049 - possible groups of tags (e.g. in French the group of all "nasal"-sounds) 0050 0051 Training Units 0052 -------------- 0053 A unit consists of 0054 - specification of the language 0055 - list of (tagged and categorized) strings 0056 - according set of sound files 0057 Further the strings are categorized by 0058 1. word 0059 2. expression 0060 3. sentence 0061 4. paragraph/sentences 0062 The tags however, are specific for the current language. Though a basic set should be the phonetic alphabet. 0063 0064 0065 COLOR CONCEPTS 0066 0067 Difficulty Levels: 0068 word 0069 - grün 0070 2DE86C 0071 RGB 45/232/108 0072 expression 0073 - blau 0074 327BFF 0075 RGB 50/123/255 0076 sentence 0077 - gelb 0078 FFF13F 0079 RGB 255/241/63 0080 paragraph 0081 - orange 0082 E85A02 0083 RGB 232/90/2