With this capability, how close are y'all to it being able to listen to my pronunciation of a new language (e.g. Italian) and given specific feedback about how to pronounce it like a local?
Seems like these would be similar.
Seems like these would be similar.
But for conversation, you can’t speak Mandarin without using proper tones because you simply won’t be understood.
You can be perfectly understood if you don't speak broadcast Chinese. There are plenty of heavy accents to deal with anyways. Like Beijing 儿化 or the inability of southerners to pronounce sh very differently from s.
The first (and imo the main) hurdle is not reproduction, but just learning to hear the correct sounds. If you don't speak Hindi and are a native English speaker, this [1] is a good example. You can only work on nailing those consonants when they become as distinct to your ear as cUp and cAp are in English.
We can get by by falling back to context (it's unlikely someone would ask for a "shit of paper"!), but it's impossible to confidently reproduce the sounds unless they are already completely distinct in our heads/ears.
That's because we think we hear things as they are, but it's an illusion. Cup/cap distinction is as subtle to an Eastern European as Hindi consonants or Mandarin tones are to English speakers, because the set of meaningful sounds distinctions differs between languages. Relearning the phonetic system requires dedicated work (minimal pairs is one option) and learning enough phonetics to have the vocabulary to discuss sounds as they are. It's not enough to just give feedback.
interestingly, i think this isn't always true -- i was able to coach my native-spanish-speaking wife to correctly pronounce "v" vs "b" (both are just "b" in spanish, or at least her dialect) before she could hear the difference; later on she was developed the ability to hear it.
Even styles of thought might be different in other languages, so I don't say that lightly... (stay strong, Sapir-Wharf, stay strong ;)
What's strange to me is that, as far as I know, "plátano" is only commonly used in Spain, but the accent of the AI voice didn't sound like it's from Spain. It sounds more like an American who speaks Spanish as a second language, and those folks typically speak some Mexican dialect of Spanish.
Plátano is commonly used for banana in Mexico, just bought some at a Soriana this weekend.
The wiktionary page for "plátano" has a map illustrating how various Spanish-speaking countries refer to the banana.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pl%C3%A1tano#/media/File:Porp...
My principal association with plátano is plaintain, personally, but I am not a Spanish speaker.
And note that understanding broken language is a skill you have to train. If you aren't used to it then it is impossible to understand what they say. You might not have been in that situation if you are an English speaker since you are so used to broken English, but it happens a lot for others.
The Italian sounded good to me.