Of Phonemes, Glottis and Slides

Na-time-warp ako kagabi sa Spanish class.

After a long, long, long, loooooooooong time, narinig ko na naman ang mga salitang phonemes, glottis, and slides . Ilang taon ko na ring di naririnig ang mga katagang yon. Ilang taon ko na rin di naisip kung ano ang mga phonemes na nagfo-fall under glottal stops, slides, vowels, nasals, fricatives and affricates.

Bumalik ako sa mundo ko sa DSP at mga pinagdaanan ko concerning speech. Nung sinasabi ng Spanish teacher namin na iba-iba ang phoneme sets ng bawat lenguahe, nakikita ko na ako lang ang nag-na-nod in agreement! Ako lang nakakaintindi sa kanya hahahah!

Sa totoo lang, na-enjoy ko ang speech sa DSP. Di lang kasi technical know-how yun eh. Kelangan din ng left-brain capabilities ang speech technology. Sabi nga ng guro namin sa Spanish, you need to know sounds, or you have an ear for sound, to learn a new language and to speak it the way natives do. For consultants and analysts, the first thing na mage-gets nila is grammer. Coz the first we do naman daw kasi is to analyze the sentence, and get the meaning based on context. Rightly so, the first thing na 'gets' ng speech technology is grammer and language (ramil and reghz, ano nga ba yung n-gram something something na yon?). The next step siguro is to make the computer answer the way a person does (make him sound less and less like a robot). And that will definitely entail an ear for sound, and reproduce that sound to perfection. And sorry na lang siguro kung tone deaf ka hahahha =D

Hay... napunta nako from Spanish to speech. Definitely learning more Spanish (but don't expect me to write anything Spanish muna kasi hahanapin ko pa yung mga baligtad na question mark na kelangan para sa question na statement).

And definitely missing DSP... haaay kelan kaya makakabisita sa EEE?

Toodles!