A computer graphic three‐dimensional tongue and lip movement synchronized with English fricatives for Japanese learners.

Abstract

Some English fricatives are difficult specifically for Japanese learners of English (JL2) to produce. Simultaneous articulation of the lip and teeth (as in lebiodentals), or the tongue and teeth (as in dentals), or protruding lips (as in postalveolars) do not exist in standard Japanese. To understand partially or completely, invisible articulatory movements are unavoidable for JL2 in order to produce these fricatives properly. Thus, as an aid for the basic pronunciation training, a visualized automatic lip and tongue movement program synchronized with these fricatives was developed, utilizing three‐dimensional computer graphic technologies. In this program, not only the lips, teeth, and tongue but also the other necessary speech organs were made to be half transparent. Consequently, it enables the learner to listen to and repeatedly model the target segmental sound while looking at these articulatory movements vividly from all kinds of angles. This system changes the phonetic practice situation from two‐d...