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Interactive Computer Aids for Acquiring Proficiency in Mandarin

  • Conference paper
Chinese Spoken Language Processing (ISCSLP 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4274))

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Abstract

It is widely recognized that one of the best ways to learn a foreign language is through spoken dialogue with a native speaker. However, this is not a practical method in the classroom due to the one-to-one student/teacher ratio it implies. A potential solution to this problem is to rely on computer spoken dialogue systems to role play a conversational partner. This paper describes several multilingual dialogue systems specifically designed to address this need. Students can engage in dialogue with the computer either over the telephone or through audio/typed input at a Web page. Several different domains are being developed, in which a student’s conversational interaction is assisted by a software agent functioning as a “tutor” which can provide them with translation assistance at any time. Thus, two recognizers are running in parallel, one for English and one for Chinese. Some of the research issues surrounding high-quality spoken language translation and dialogue interaction with a non-native speaker are discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Stephanie Seneff

Authors
  1. Stephanie Seneff
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Qiang Huo

  2. Human Language Technology Department, Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), 119613, Singapore

    Bin Ma

  3. School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), 639798, Singapore

    Eng-Siong Chng

  4. Institute for Infocomm Research, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, 119613, Singapore

    Haizhou Li

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Seneff, S. (2006). Interactive Computer Aids for Acquiring Proficiency in Mandarin. In: Huo, Q., Ma, B., Chng, ES., Li, H. (eds) Chinese Spoken Language Processing. ISCSLP 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4274. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11939993_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11939993_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-49665-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49666-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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