artikulate

The Artikulate Handbook

Andreas Cord-LandwehrOndrila Gupta


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Contents

1 Introduction 51.1 The Learning Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.2 First Steps in Artikulate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.2.1 1. Create a Learner Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.2.2 2. Select a Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.2.3 3. Download a Language Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2.4 4. Start Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2.5 Finish Training / Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2 Screens 92.1 The Training Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.1.1 Sound Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.1.2 Learning Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.1.3 Progress Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3 Editor 123.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.1.1 Editor Notions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123.1.2 Set Storage Folder/Course Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.2 Edit a Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133.2.1 Edit a Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.2.2 Edit a Phrase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.2.3 Update from Course Prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4 Credits and License 16

A Installation 17A.1 How to obtain Artikulate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17A.2 Compilation and installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

A.2.1 Artikulate Specific Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Abstract

Artikulate is a pronunciation trainer, which helps in improving and perfecting pronunci-ation skills. Learners train their pronunciation by recording their own voices and comparingthem to native speaker recordings. Artikulate is part of the KDE Education Project.


Chapter 1

Introduction

Artikulate is a pronunciation trainer that helps improving and perfecting a learners pronuncia-tion skills for a foreign language. For this, it provides courses with native speaker recordings ofthe target language for download. The learner download courses for selected language, selects agroup of phrases, starts to record her/his own voice when speaking the phrases himself/herself,and compares the results to the native speakers recordings by listening to both.

1.1 The Learning Concept

The study concept of this language learning application is as follows. By repeating and com-paring own recordings of spoken phrases to the recordings of (a representative set of) nativespeakers, a learner can

identify weaknesses when speaking the foreign language and

adapt the pronunciation to coincide with the native speakers pronunciation.

For best learning outcome, specifically designed courses for every supported language are neces-sary. Those courses can concentrate on training special scenarios (like ordering food in a restau-rant) but can also focus on learning how to pronounce difficult syllables and words of a particularlanguage correctly.

1.2 First Steps in Artikulate

This chapter explains how to make the first steps in Artikulate, especially how to create a learneridentity, how to select a language and how to get native speaker recordings to start training.

1.2.1 1. Create a Learner Identity

For every learner, there has to be one learner identity that saves the learning progress. This alsoallows multiple people to use Artikulate on the same computer, each being able to have his/herprivate learning goals. To create a learner identity, click on the Create Learner Identity button(if starting Artikulate for the first time) or otherwise the button with the name of the currentlyselected learner identity at the top left of the window. In the opening dialog, then select CreateNew Learner Identity. You can edit your name with the Edit button and set a picture if you like.

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1.2.2 2. Select a Language

Setting the training language(s) of a learner is done in the Favorite Languages tab by activating(clicking at) the languages. The star symbol corresponding to each language will turn coloredonce it is selected. Close the Learner Identity dialog by selecting your identity with Use Se-lected Identity. Note that when downloading courses, the course language will automatically beactivated for the currently selected learner identity.

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1.2.3 3. Download a Language Course

For this tutorial, we assume that we would like to learn Polish and hence that we want to down-load a course for Polish. You can download courses through FileDownload New LanguageCourse or by clicking at the orange star at the top right. A download window will appear, listingthe available languages provided by the KDE Community. You can sort through them using theorder by functions at the right. We download the Polish course by clicking on Install.

1.2.4 4. Start Training

Courses consist of multiple training units, each usually grouping a set of phrases according toa scenario. Select one of the training units available at the left panel, and then click on StartTraining.

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1.2.5 Finish Training / Statistics

After completing through all the phrases in a training unit, you will see a statistics screen for thecompleted training. You can see how many tries it took for the various types of phrases. Thestatistics screen is closed by click on the Finish Training button at the top right.

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Chapter 2

Screens

2.1 The Training Screen

The training view is the most important view in Artikulate. Whenever starting a training, thisview is opened and will be presented until the training of the selected training unit is finished orthe learner stops the training. In the center of this screen, there are controls for playing a nativespeaker recording, the text of the corresponding phrase, and controls to record and playbackthe learners own voice. When a learner judges to be done with training the pronunciation of thecurrent phrase, by clicking OK the current phrase is marked as done and a next phrase is selected.Otherwise, when clicking on Retry Later, a next phrase is selected but the current phrase will bedisplayed later again.

For training the pronunciation of a current phrase, the learner shall first play the native speakersrecording by pressing at the Playback button at the left. The next step is to press on the Recordbutton and read the presented phrase aloud. A further press on the Record button stops therecording and the recording can then be played with the corresponding Playback button. Bylistening to both recordings, the learner shall judge if the phrase was pronounced correctly ornot. If it was pronounced correctly, clicking on OK marks the phrase as learned and proceedswith the next phrase. Otherwise, if not yet satisfied with the recording, the learner either canretry recording by again clicking on Record or schedule the phrase for later training by clickingon Retry Later.

Artikulates units are composed of a list of phrases of different lengths (words, expressions, sen-tences, and paragraphs). A learner can see the current learning progress at the bottom whenlooking at the progress bar. The progress bar also allows switching between phrases.

At any time, the learner can choose to stop training by clicking at the Finish button.

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2.1.1 Sound Controls

Record: Record your pronunciation through your microphone. Click again to stoprecording.

Playback: Play a sound file. If active, click again to stop.

2.1.2 Learning Controls

OK: Mark current phrase as learned and continue with next phrase.

Retry Later: Continue with training next phrase, but try this phrase later again.

Stop: Stops the training and proceeds to the statistics view. Current training resultsare saved to training statistics.

2.1.3 Progress Bar

The progress bar displays the learning progress for the current unit. It consists of blocks repre-senting the phrases in the current unit, whereas the color of a block explains the length of the

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phrase. You can hover over these blocks to see the phrases and click on them to switch the cur-rently trained phrase. Dark elements are already trained, light ones are untrained.

On top of the progress bar you can see which type of phrases you are currently learning. Theavailable types are:

word: a single word, letter, or number

expression: an expression of several words that does not form a complete sentence

sentence: a complete sentence

paragraph: several sentences (usually 2-3)

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Chapter 3

Editor

The integrated course editor is an advanced tool for language course contributors that allows thecreation and collaborative work on language courses for Artikulate. On the one hand it allowsthe creation of language courses and recording of the native speaker sound files. On the hand,it enables work on so called skeletons, which are language course prototypes that allow easy andfast creation of new courses derived from a prototype. The editor only edits files outside of thetraining course set, i.e., the set of courses downloaded in Artikulate.

3.1 Overview

3.1.1 Editor Notions

For the course editor we use a specific set of terms, which is also used for the following descrip-tions.

Language:

Languages are only available in Artikulate if they are given by language specifications.

Course:A course is associated to one language and contains a list of units.

Unit:A unit consists of phrases that are somehow homogeneous. E.g. those can be phrasesspoken in a restaurant or phrases spoken at a conversation at the street by a tourist search-ing for the way.

Course Skeletons:A course skeleton forms the prototype of a course. This is, skeletons help to ease creationof courses in several languages as they state a set of units and phrases (in English) that thencan be used as a blueprint to create a course in a new language. Updates of course skeletonscan also be imported into courses that are created from a skeleton.

Phrases:Phrases are given by a text string and a recording by a native speaker. We differ phrases bytheir lengths. The following phrase lengths exists

word: a single word, letter, or number

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expression: an expression of several words that does not form a completesentence

sentence: a complete sentence

paragraph: several sentences (usually 2-3)

A course is associated with a specific language, consists of different units and each unit is givenby a sequence of phrases in different lengths.

3.1.2 Set Storage Folder/Course Repository

The editor operates within a separate folder (in the following called repository, as it is recom-mended to be under some version control system). In that folder, the editor searches for editablecourses and skeleton files and also stores new files.The course repository can be set in the configuration dialog. It can be found at Settings Configure Artikulate and the course settings are at the menu option Course Resources.

Set course repository for editor.

3.2 Edit a Course

The editor can be started from the main menu with Mode Course Editor mode. There youhave the options to work on existing skeleton files or to create new courses or edit existing ones.After selecting a language, you can open an existing course to edit it, or otherwise use NewCourse to create a new course for this language. In either case, you will be presented the list ofunits of the course, where you can create new units or open existing ones for edit.

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3.2.1 Edit a Unit

When opening a unit for editing, you will see the list of its phrases (see below). One line of thislist contains the following information:

1. edit button: open this phrase for edit

2. phrase type: icon that denotes the type of this phrase (e.g., word, expression)

3. edit state: a colored block that denotes the edit state of this phrase (red: unknown/no stateset; orange: translated state; green: completed state)

4. the phrase

5. exclude button: if course derives from a course skeleton, this button allows excluding thephrase from the unit

Editor View: list of phrases within a unit.

3.2.2 Edit a Phrase

When opening a phrase for editing, you will see the phrase editor as shown below. This editinterface contains the following elements:

the phrase text as it will be shown in the trainer

the original phrase, if using a course skeleton

the edit state of the phrase

the type/length of the phrase

recording buttons for the native speaker recordings

buttons to denote interesting phonemes of the phrase (currently not used in training mode)

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You can close the phrase editing interface with to accept the changes you did, or with

to discard your changes.

Editor View: editing view for a phrase.

3.2.3 Update from Course Prototype

If the currently edited course derives from a skeleton, then the course can be updated from thelatest version of the skeleton by using the button Update from Course Prototype at the top leftof the screen. This button is deactivated if the course is not derived from a course skeleton.

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Chapter 4

Credits and License

ArtikulateProgram Copyright:

Copyright 2013-2014 Andreas Cord-Landwehr

Copyright 2013 Oindrila Gupta

Copyright 2013 Magdalena Konkiewitz

Copyright 2013-2014 Samikshan Bairagya

Documentation Copyright:

Copyright 2014 Andreas Cord-Landwehr

This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

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Appendix A

Installation

A.1 How to obtain Artikulate

Artikulate is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org/ .

Artikulate can be found in the artikulate package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/ , the main FTPsite of the KDE project.

A.2 Compilation and installation

For detailed information on how to compile and install KDE applications see Building and Run-ning KDE Software From Source

Since KDE uses cmake you should have no trouble compiling it. Should you run into problemsplease report them to the KDE mailing lists.

A.2.1 Artikulate Specific Instructions

Further guidelines on how to compile Artikulate are available in Artikulates technical documen-tation at the KDE TechBase.

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IntroductionThe Learning ConceptFirst Steps in Artikulate1. Create a Learner Identity2. Select a Language3. Download a Language Course4. Start TrainingFinish Training / Statistics

ScreensThe Training ScreenSound ControlsLearning ControlsProgress Bar

EditorOverviewEditor NotionsSet Storage Folder/Course Repository

Edit a CourseEdit a UnitEdit a PhraseUpdate from Course Prototype

Credits and LicenseInstallationHow to obtain ArtikulateCompilation and installationArtikulate Specific Instructions

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