CaptainA - A mobile app for practising Finnish pronunciation

Nhan Phan, Tamás Grósz, Mikko Kurimo

Keywords: mispronunciation detection, CAPT, mobile app, low-resource, wav2vec 2.0, end-to-end

TL;DR: Prototype mobile app for practising Finnish pronunciation in low-resouces settings.

Abstract: Learning a new language is often difficult, especially practising it independently. The main issue with self-study is the absence of accurate feedback from a teacher, which would enable students to learn unfamiliar languages. In recent years, with advances in Artificial Intelligence and Automatic Speech Recognition, it has become possible to build applications that can provide valuable feedback on the users' pronunciation. In this paper, we introduce the CaptainA app explicitly developed to aid students in practising their Finnish pronunciation on handheld devices. Our app is a valuable resource for immigrants who are busy with school or work, and it helps them integrate faster into society. Furthermore, by providing this service for L2 speakers and collecting their data, we can continuously improve our system and provide better aid in the future.

Student Paper: Yes, the first author is a student