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I like the idea, and decided to try doing some validation. The first thing I noticed is that it asks me to make a yes-or-no judgment of whether the sentence was

I like the idea, and decided to try doing some validation. The first thing I noticed is that it asks me to make a yes-or-no judgment of whether the sentence was spoken "accurately", but nowhere on the site is it explained what "accurate" means, or how strict I should be. (The first clip I got was spoken more or less correctly, but a couple of words are slurred together and the prosody is awkward. Without having a good idea of the standards and goals of the project, I have no idea whether including this clip would make the overall dataset better or worse. My gut feeling is that it's good for training recognition, and bad for training synthesis.) This seems to me like a major issue, since it should take a relatively small amount of effort to write up a list of guidelines, and it would be hugely beneficial to establish those guidelines before asking a lot of volunteers to donate their time. I don't find it encouraging that this has been an open issue for four years, with apparently no action except a bunch of bikeshedding: https://github.com/common-voice/common-voice/issues/273 https://github.com/common-voice/common-voice/issues/273

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xwx 5y ago
I downloaded the (unofficial) Common Voice app [1] and it provides a link to some guidelines [2], which also aren't official but look sensible and seem like the best there is at the moment. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/org.commonvoice.saverio/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.commonvoice.saverio/ [2] https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/discussion-of-new-guidelines-for-recording-validation/36465 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/discussion-of-new-guidelines...
cptskippy 5y ago
After listening to about 10 clips your point becomes abundantly clear. One speaker, who sounded like they were from the mid-west United States, was dropping the S off words in a couple clips. I wasn't sure if it was misreads or some accent I'd never heard. Another speaker, with a thick accent that sounded European, sounded out all the vowels in circuit. Had I not had the line being read, I don't think I'd have understood the word. I heard a speaker with an Indian accent who added a preposition to the sentence that was inconsequential but incorrect none the less. I hear these random prepositions added as flourishes frequently with some Indian coworkers, does anyone know the a reason? It's kind of like how American's interject "Umm..." or drop prepositions (e.g. "Are you done your meal?") and I almost didn't pick up on it. For that matter where did the American habit of dropping prepositions come from? It seems like it's people in the North East primarily.
- OJFord 5y ago
  I can't quite imagine superfluous prepositions (could you give an example?) but I have found it slightly amusing learning Hindi and coming across things where I think Oh! That's why you sometimes hear X from Indian English speakers, it's just a slightly 'too' literal¹ mapping from Hindi, or trying to use a grammatical construction that doesn't really exist in English, like 'topic marking'. [¹] If that's even fair given it's a dialect in its own right - Americans also say things differently than I would as a 'Britisher'
  - batch12 5y ago
    Are you talking about phrases like "please do the needful"?
    - OJFord 5y ago
      That's not one I've heard. Examples that come to mind are 'even I' (which seems closer to 'I too' than the 'you'd scarcely believe it but I' that it naturally sounds to me), 'he himself' (or similar subject emphasis), and adverb repetition. I'd say it's mostly subtler (I suppose that should be the expected distribution!) things I've noticed though, they're just harder to recall as a result. (Just want to emphasise I'm not making fun of anybody or saying anything's wrong, in case it's not clear in text. I'm just enjoying learning Hindi, fairly interested in language generally, and interested/amused to notice these things.)
      - OJFord 5y ago
        Just thought of another - '[something is] very less' - which comes, presumably, from कम being used for both little/few and less than. Hindi is much more economical, to put it literally, one says things like 'than/from/compared to orange, lemon is sour', and 'orange is little/less [without comparison] sour'. Which, I believe, is what gives rise to InE sentences like 'the salt in this is very less' (it needs more salt, there's very little).
- batch12 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

xwx 5y ago

I downloaded the (unofficial) Common Voice app [1] and it provides a link to some guidelines [2], which also aren't official but look sensible and seem like the best there is at the moment. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/org.commonvoice.saverio/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.commonvoice.saverio/ [2] https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/discussion-of-new-guidelines-for-recording-validation/36465 https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/discussion-of-new-guidelines...

cptskippy 5y ago

After listening to about 10 clips your point becomes abundantly clear. One speaker, who sounded like they were from the mid-west United States, was dropping the S off words in a couple clips. I wasn't sure if it was misreads or some accent I'd never heard. Another speaker, with a thick accent that sounded European, sounded out all the vowels in circuit. Had I not had the line being read, I don't think I'd have understood the word. I heard a speaker with an Indian accent who added a preposition to the sentence that was inconsequential but incorrect none the less. I hear these random prepositions added as flourishes frequently with some Indian coworkers, does anyone know the a reason? It's kind of like how American's interject "Umm..." or drop prepositions (e.g. "Are you done your meal?") and I almost didn't pick up on it. For that matter where did the American habit of dropping prepositions come from? It seems like it's people in the North East primarily.

OJFord 5y ago
I can't quite imagine superfluous prepositions (could you give an example?) but I have found it slightly amusing learning Hindi and coming across things where I think Oh! That's why you sometimes hear X from Indian English speakers, it's just a slightly 'too' literal¹ mapping from Hindi, or trying to use a grammatical construction that doesn't really exist in English, like 'topic marking'. [¹] If that's even fair given it's a dialect in its own right - Americans also say things differently than I would as a 'Britisher'
- batch12 5y ago
  Are you talking about phrases like "please do the needful"?
  - OJFord 5y ago
    That's not one I've heard. Examples that come to mind are 'even I' (which seems closer to 'I too' than the 'you'd scarcely believe it but I' that it naturally sounds to me), 'he himself' (or similar subject emphasis), and adverb repetition. I'd say it's mostly subtler (I suppose that should be the expected distribution!) things I've noticed though, they're just harder to recall as a result. (Just want to emphasise I'm not making fun of anybody or saying anything's wrong, in case it's not clear in text. I'm just enjoying learning Hindi, fairly interested in language generally, and interested/amused to notice these things.)
    - OJFord 5y ago
      Just thought of another - '[something is] very less' - which comes, presumably, from कम being used for both little/few and less than. Hindi is much more economical, to put it literally, one says things like 'than/from/compared to orange, lemon is sour', and 'orange is little/less [without comparison] sour'. Which, I believe, is what gives rise to InE sentences like 'the salt in this is very less' (it needs more salt, there's very little).
batch12 5y ago