Speech Speed Awareness System Slows Down Native Speaker’s Talk

Abstract

Conversation between native speakers and non-native speakers is not always easy. Non-native speakers sometimes feel hard to understand what native speakers talk because of their speaking speed. Even kind native speakers who speak slower in the beginning often get back to their “natural” speed unconsciously after a while. Although non-native speakers may ask a native speaker to repeat what they cannot catch, participants of the conversation would become uneasy for too often request of repeating, which may also reduce productivity of the conversation or the meeting. In this paper, we study how conversation between native and non-native speakers is conducted regarding speech rate, how the introduction of a speech speed awareness system could alleviate this communication problem. The system recognizes speech rate in real-time and makes participants aware when their speech rate is too fast for non-native speakers.