Common Voice – A Request from Lisa Noble

I got this request from Lisa Noble…

Well, of course, I had to check it out.

Not only is it a “lot of fun” as Lisa notes, it addresses a big bug-a-boo of mine.  There has to be a much more sophisticated and reliable approach to voice recognition.  You should hear me sometimes screaming at the voice recognition unit in my car as I try to get it to do things.

On the other hand, my Moto 360 watch and my Samsung phone don’t seem to have a problem.

So, in this project, you can help validate submissions and contribute your own voice.

Listening to the submissions and checking them off was actually a great deal of fun.  I thought here was a nice selection of various accents.

When you create your own, you’re asked to self-identify a number of things.

Screenshot 2017-07-20 at 17.33.59

The project is focused on English and you get to select your accent.

I have to smile.  Recently, I caught up with a number of friends from various locations world-wide at the CSTA Conference.  I think of listening to friends in discussions from New Hampshire, Arkansas, Iowa, and Ohio.  To my ear, they all have a different type of accent.  I wonder how they can be clumped together as “United States English”.

Screenshot 2017-07-20 at 17.38.09

I then turned to myself.  I don’t have an accent!  Or, at least I don’t think I do.  But, I supposed I’d qualify as “Canadian English”, whatever that ultimately means!  I do know that I have a very nasal voice.

So, I’ll contribute a couple of sentences.  If it makes my future voice recognition things work better, I’m all for it.

Project Common Voice can be accessed here.

Thanks for the lead, Lisa.  Hopefully, others can find a moment or two to chip in.

Author: dougpete

The content of this blog is generated by whatever strikes my fancy at any given point. It might be computers, weather, political, or something else in nature. I experiment and comment a lot on things so don't take anything here too seriously; I might change my mind a day later but what you read is my thought and opinion at the time I wrote it! My personal website is at: http://www.dougpeterson.ca Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dougpete I'm bookmarking things at: http://www.diigo.com/user/dougpete

4 thoughts on “Common Voice – A Request from Lisa Noble”

  1. Your comment about the various accents in the States, made me think that the same is true in Canada. Some words that I say, make people believe that I’m from Nova Scotia. Growing up with a mom and grandma from there helped me pick up some sayings of words that I continue to not be able to change. I guess that just one Canadian and American option may not be enough. Our accents are definitely diverse here.

    This does look interesting though. I will have to check it out. Thanks for sharing, Doug and Lisa!

    Aviva

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  3. I had fun doing this last week too! I was thinking it would be a great thing for students to try – no personally identifying information – and it would be a great jumping off point for understanding what ‘The Commons’ is all about (while sneaking in a little practicing of reading fluency).

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  4. Brenda, I thought this, too. And I thought that listening to different voices read in English would also be beneficial in terms of making the world a little smaller. One of my sons made the comment that he thought that it might create a strange-sounding accent when everything gets morphed together.

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