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Re: speech recognition in two languages

Hi Ubanov,

>we want to build a voice directory for one enterprise

Aahh... I think you can do this with Sphinx or HTK/Julius with no changes to the code... 

I assumed you were working something like a VoiceXML VR app that had menus and selections that would be in different languages...

A directory application that uses proper names to direct callers is a little unique since you usually have to manually create pronunciations for the names... so you might be better off with *one* acoustic model.

Since really what you are looking at are three different pronunciations of the same proper names: Spanish, Vasc and English.  You could do this by recording people speaking the names in all three languages, and create a pronunciation dictionary that includes the phonemes for each language (using SAMPA or IPA to help you create unique phonemes). 

For HTK/Julius (I am not sure about Sphinx...) you could create a return word with a language tag that your app would parse to determine which language your users use the most (so you can tune things - i.e. get more samples of Vasc if recognition rates are not so good...).  For example (these are very made up phonemes...):

    UBANOV [UBANOV-EN] uh b ah n oh v

    UBANOV [UBANOV-VA] u bh n a vh

    UBANOV [UBANOV-ES] ui b ae n i vh

Ken

--- (Edited on 12/1/2008 11:14 am [GMT-0500] by kmaclean) ---