Archive
Microsoft & the future of interpreting
Microsoft is at it again: making predictions on the future of interpreting right at the beginning of their new “FUTURE VISION video: In 5-10 years, how will people get things done at work, at home, and on the go?”. The glasses should state “Interpreting” instead of “Translating”, yet anything that aids in cross-cultural communication would be most welcome. But will it happen in “5-10 years”? (This movie is also about the past: viewing it from their own site in Google’s Chrome brought down my computer with a BSOD relating to video driver (phone camera did not start up quite fast enough to capture it).
Sample of how students use the foreign language TTS (text-to-speech) in the LRC
Last week, I noticed this student in the LRC working on a speaking assignment in her SLA class. First, she wrote a draft of her presentation. She then had the Deskbot TTS wizard (in the lower right of her screen) read out the draft to her. She recorded her version, modeling after the Deskbot’s pronunciation. Then she had the Deskbot read out the draft again, to compare with her own recording.
Look for the little guy in the lower right corner of the screen with the cartoon bubble over his head.
I favor the use of the Deskbot TTS (a Windows XP technology) as an easily accessible speaking dictionary, including during face-to-face teaching, when students may otherwise be too shy to make an utterance because they are not sure about the pronunciation of a single word, or even ask the teacher to pronounce it for them. Prosodically, the deskbot TTS leaves many things to be desired. Let’s hope that Windows 7 will enable us to set up more advanced TTS support in the LRC.
How to use the online Portuguese pronunciation help to generate phonetic alphabet transcriptions and text-to-speech
- Go to http://www.co.it.pt/~labfala/g2p/
- Write or paste your text into the textbox:“Grafemas”
- Choose your preferred phonetic alphabet (IPA, SAMPA) and other options.
- Press button: “Converter” to see results.
- Press button: “Sintetizar” to hear results.
- Like so:
- Or click here to view a demo (requires Windows Media Player) with audio (download requires Windows Media Player). Our example was:
- Input: Tudo bem? É o jeitinho brasileiro. Oí, árbitro! Cadê o penalty? Não, não posso faze-lo.
- Output: tˈudu bɐ̃ĩ ˈɛ u ʒɐitˈiɲu bɾɐzilˈɐiɾu oˈi ˈaɾbitɾu kɐdˈe u pˈenalti nˈɐ̃ũ nˈɐ̃ũ pˈɔsu fˈazɘlu
Learn Chinese character stroke-order with slowed-down animated GIFs
Further to our prior tips on learning Chinese stroke order, now you can take your time, in the LRC: To facilitate your practicing of Chinese character stroke-order, we have used the most helpful site (also available by direct download) created by Tim Xie for the California State University, Long Beach, to create 100 different speed versions, and one comic strip like static image, for each of the several hundred of animated GIFs demonstrating Chinese character writing, and made them available on the LRC computers under Internet Explorer Favorites – Example:
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You can access the files with the stroke order speed of your preference from the LRCCOED434 student computers, like so:
(Many thanks also to the authors of programmable ImageMagick image editor and corresponding Unix shell scripts that we could use in the production of the slowed down animated GIFs. To create your own version of these slowed down animated GIFs, or others similar websites, feel free to pick up and/or adapt our shell script here).
News TV on the internet: Politics and Legislatures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Parliamentary_broadcasters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Legislature_broadcasters
http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/about/activities_en.cfm
”On-demand consultation of any event or subject during the week following its transmission on satellite. All products become accessible to any connected media or individual anywhere in the world through the Internet portal of the audiovisual service. On the site you will find EbS permanently updated transmission schedule, as well as shotlists detailing the content of pictures and links to complementary information sources and photos. Pictures and sound may be downloaded in broadcast quality formats: MPEG2 for video, MP3 for sound and JPEG for photos. This news material is published during or soon after the events, remains available *for at least one month* and is easy to download, process and file.”
German public TV on the internet
French TV on the internet
TV5 seems still in the satellite/per-per-view phase. But it offers free video learning resources: http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/enseigner-apprendre-francais/accueil_enseigner.php
Questions? Read the About. Or just ask me a quick Our Databases: Resources with calendars -- Language learning material Moodle Sites, multimedia files -- films
FAQs for LRC student staff or for students or for teachers. To search our FAQs, in the browser addressbar, add after "https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/feed/?tag=faqs+/" "+TAG1" (from tag cloud below) OR "https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/feed/tag=faqs
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Other ways to find help
If you cannot find it here, look there: 5,500 Language-Learning Links and Programs for learning or teaching 150 languages
Shortcuts:Our Lists, Our Maps, LRC Staff Moodle Site,LRC Project Moodle Site, 49erexpress, UNCC Moodle, Student Recordings: s:claslcslrcsanakostudent
Learning usage samples: Sanako oral exam, Kaltura webcam presentation, Dictation with speech recognition, Sanako written exam, Chinese and Japanese interactive stroke-order practice
Test the Sanako Installer, Webbrowser Popup Konfigurator for XP, or Windows7, faster LRC TeacherPC Log-in Let MS facilitate diacritics writing by installing for you US-International keyboard layout
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