Sounding off
Question: I am a naturalized citizen from Germany and have lived in the U.S. for 45 years. I have a slight accent, which isn’t usually an issue, except when I encounter those machine-generated voices on the phone. When I call to check a flight, I can’t make myself understood. Am I the only person with a foreign accent in California? And what can I do about this?
Gabriele Rau
Irvine
Answer: After speaking with Rau, I can say that her English, while slightly accented, is perfectly understandable. If 92 languages are spoken in the Los Angeles Unified School District, it’s a sure bet she’s not alone in her frustration.
Before you suggest that non-English speaking folks get rid of any vestiges of an accent and speak the Queen’s English, consider that the one iPhone application that uses voice recognition reportedly did not, at first, understand certain British accents.
Why this happens is rooted in the models on which these systems were designed and how they are trained.
“If you built a speech recognition system that was for people whose first language was German and they were all speaking English, it would be working fine,” said Tony Robinson, director of the advanced speech group of SpinVox, a nifty application that turns voice mail into text. “The problem that she’s seeing is that all of the models . . . were trained up for people who didn’t have German accents.”
As more people use such systems, the bigger issue isn’t just the recognition; it’s the introduction of new words, said Mike Phillips, co-founder and chief technical officer of Vlingo, an equally nifty application that allows you to tell your phone what to do (as in “search restaurants Los Angeles” or send an e-mail or text just by speaking it -- are you hearing this, no-texting-by-a driver-Californians?)
“Before the Olympics, if you tried to search on my name, Michael Phillips, it might have recognized my name, but after, because people started to talk about [gold-medal swimmer] Michael Phelps that’s what it understood,” Phillips said.
When I used Vlingo to e-mail my sister, whose last name is nearly impossible to spell, understand or pronounce, it heard her name and e-mail address correctly but instead of writing “baby sister,” my oft-used endearment for her, it typed “baby bear,” which may be more accurate but not quite what I intended.
So the systems continue to develop and they are continually tested, and sometimes they test us, whether it’s these two genius applications or an automated phone attendant that just can’t understand whom we’re trying to reach at XYZ Co.
To improve your chances of being understood, both experts suggest using a phone with high-quality audio and calling from a place where ambient noise is at a minimum.
One day, these systems will be so smart that none of this will be an issue, but until then, we’ll have to grin and baby bear it.
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