• MALSORI
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• no.46
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• pp.87-102
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• 2003

In this paper, we present an English pronunciation correction system for Korean speakers and show some of experimental results on it. The aim of the system is to detect mispronounced phonemes in spoken words and to give appropriate correction comments to users. There are several English pronunciation correction systems adopting speech recognition technology, however, most of them use conventional speech recognition engines. From this reason, they could not give phoneme based correction comments to users. In our system, we build two kinds of phoneme models: standard native speaker models and Korean's error models. We also design recognition network based on phonemes to detect Koreans' common mispronunciations. We get 90% detection rate in insertion/deletion/replacement of phonemes, but we cannot get high detection rate in diphthong split and accents.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.167-169
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• 2007

This study analyzes Korean students' pronunciation errors in stop-nasal sequences in English. For the study, 23 English words of stop-nasal sequences were pronounced by 4 natives and 21 Korean students. The results showed two kinds of pronunciation errors: the insertion of a vowel and the nasal assimilation between stops and nasals. A teaching material was designed based on the errors. After a 60-minute class with the material they were asked to pronounce the same words in another session. There was a substantial improvement in the error correction.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.151-160
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• 2024

Through the utilization of a contrastive analysis of English consonantal phonemes and their Russian counterparts, the present study investigates the challenges faced by Russian EFL learners in pronouncing English consonantal phonemes, with a particular focus on phoneme substitution errors as a principal source of erroneous pronunciation. We comprehensively explore the characteristics of both the English and Russian consonant systems, highlighting the differences between them. Based on this examination, the study aims to present the detailed articulatory characteristics and phonetic variations of Russian speakers' common mispronunciations or improper substitutes of English consonants, rather than focusing on shared ones between the two languages. Furthermore, it seeks to provide strategies for error correction and effective pedagogical strategies to address specific phonemic challenges and enhance accuracy. Grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the objectives and advantages of comparative analysis within the context of phonemic awareness, the study emphasizes the significant importance of pronunciation instruction. It points out that this area still appears somewhat overlooked in specific EFL teaching situations within the context of English language education.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.104-111
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• 2007

This paper examines how the performance of an automatic speech recognizer was improved for Korean Point-of-Interest (POI) data by modeling pronunciation variation using structural prosodic information such as prosodic words and syllable length. First, multiple pronunciation variants are generated using prosodic words given that each POI word can be broken down into prosodic words. And the cross-prosodic-word variations were modeled considering the syllable length of word. A total of 81 experiments were conducted using 9 test sets (3 baseline and 6 proposed) on 9 trained sets (3 baseline, 6 proposed). The results show: (i) the performance was improved when the pronunciation lexica were generated using prosodic words; (ii) the best performance was achieved when the maximum number of variants was constrained to 3 based on the syllable length; and (iii) compared to the baseline word error rate (WER) of 4.63%, a maximum of 8.4% in WER reduction was achieved when both prosodic words and syllable length were considered.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 1997

In this paper, we propose the stochastic pronunciation lexicon model for large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system. We can regard stochastic lexicon as HMM. This HMM is a stochastic finite state automata consisting of a Markov chain of subword states and each subword state in the baseform has a probability distribution of subword units. In this method, an acoustic representation of a word can be derived automatically from sample sentence utterances and subword unit models. Additionally, the stochastic lexicon is further optimized to the subword model and recognizer. From the experimental result on 3000 word continuous speech recognition, the proposed method reduces word error rate by 23.6% and sentence error rate by 10% compare to methods based on standard phonetic representations of words.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.267-278
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• 2017

As the same letter can be pronounced differently depending on word contexts, one should refer to a lexicon in order to pronounce a word correctly. Phonetic alphabets that lexicons adopt as well as pronunciations that lexicons describe for the same word can be different from lexicon to lexicon. In this paper, we use a sequence-to-sequence model that is widely used in deep learning research area in order to convert automatically from one pronunciation to another. The 12 seq2seq models are implemented based on pronunciation training data collected from 4 different lexicons. The exact accuracy of the models ranges from 74.5% to 89.6%. The aim of this study is the following two things. One is to comprehend a property of phonetic alphabets and pronunciations used in various lexicons. The other is to understand characteristics of seq2seq models by analyzing an error.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.93-106
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• 2001

The pronunciation of English l and r was a consistent problem in learning English in Korea as well as Japan. This problem occurs from the fact that in Korea and Japan there is only one liquid sound. Substituting the Korean liquid for English l and r was a common error. The pronunciation of the dark l causes a further problem in pronouncing the English l sound. To see the relationship between the English l, r, and the Korean liquid sound, an electropalatographic (EPG) experiment was done. The findings were (1) there were no tongue contacts either on the alveolar ridge or on the palate during the articulation of the dark l. (2) The Korean liquid sound was different in the tongue contact points either from English l or r. The English clear l consistently touched the alveolar ridge in the forty tokens, but the Korean liquid sound in the intervocalic and word-final position touched mainly the alveopalatal area. The English r touched exclusively the velum area. The Korean intervocalic /l/ was similar to English flap in EPG and spectrographic data. There was evidence that the word-final Korean /l/ is a lateral.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.163-167
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• 2003

Intonation as suprasegmental phonetic features conveys meanings on the postlexical or utterance level in a linguistically structured way. It includes three aspects: tunes, relative prominence, and intonational phrasing. In this article, I will treat how prosodic phrasing is functionally related to the listening comprehension of English by analysing the students' errors of listening comprehension. When utterance meaning is conveyed, it is realized to be divided into intonational phrases. The small intonational phrase is regarded as an intermediate phrase which has a primary accent and a phrase tone or audible break. Most students' errors of listening occurred with linking pronunciation in the intermediate phrases of the fast speech. Thus through the smallest unit with tune we can help students improve their pronunciation and listening ability of English.

• 중국학논총
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• no.66
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• pp.85-103
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• 2020

We use prototypes (also known as referent in semiotics) when we understand the outside world. Different language users use different prototypes to decode the same sound. When we learn Chinese language as a foreign language, during it's sound perceptual process, Korean learners' target language prototypes are different from Chinese native speakers'. The purpose of the paper is to examine the theory of speech perception and the theory of constructivism teaching, and to suggest to the Chinese language teachers to have Cunstructivist approach while they design there teaching course. For this, we concerned three things: First is to review speech perception theory and constructivism teaching theory. Second based on the preceding study, we review that learner's prototypes are different from Chinese native speaker and this cause the error of listening and pronunciation. Finally, we introduced two simple speech visualization programs developed to help us learn pronunciation.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2006

This study investigated differences in beliefs about English learning of 286 EFL college students and 52 English teachers in Korea. Data was collected using Horwitz's Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory and compared between students and teachers in beliefs. To address the research questions, the data were analyzed through descriptive statistics including frequencies, factor analysis, MANOVA, ANOVA, t-test, and reliability coefficients. The results showed four factors in student beliefs: Difficulty of learning English, nature of learning English, importance of correctness in learning English, and motivation and perceived importance of learning English. Clear differences were found in students and teachers' beliefs in English learning aptitude and importance of translation, error correction, and grammar rules. A few belief differences were also identified between Koreans and native-speaking English teachers related to the importance of vocabulary learning, pronunciation, and cultural knowledge. The findings of the study indicated that background variables such as gender and major field of study have an effect on student beliefs about L2 learning. The present study also provided pedagogical considerations to reduce mismatch between students and teachers beliefs and to improve the L2 planning and instruction.