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Are the sentences in the dataset supposed to be correct? (specifically, the `.utt` key) Seeing some strange results in multiple languages, that don't look corr

Are the sentences in the dataset supposed to be correct? (specifically, the `.utt` key) Seeing some strange results in multiple languages, that don't look correct. Even some English ones look incorrect (but not a native English speaker, so maybe I'm wrong). Here are some examples: - "i want to play that music one again" - "what's that the album is current music from" - "which alarms do i have" Maybe I'm misunderstanding the purpose of the dataset...

bagels 5y ago
These seem like it probably things people said to Alexa. There is probably a combination of speech recognition errors and actual ungrammatical speech happening. Spoken word is often ungrammatical.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  It’s kinda wild to think about how incomplete written language is compared to spoken language. Punctuation does a lot of heavy lifting. If I write “I think well the I mean what album is this the song thats playing from” it takes some work to parse, but that’s what an ASR system has to do. A more human transcription might be “I think-- well the-- I mean, what album is this (the song that’s playing) from?”
- usr1106 5y ago
  > These seem like it probably things people said to Alexa. That could be an explanation. But some people made fun of Alexa and there was no human to filter out the nonsense: In German I see: "putzen ist gut staub ist so schlecht mach jetzt deinen zauber sauber mein teppich" (cleaning is good dust is so bad make your miracle cleanly my carpet)
- numpad0 5y ago
  On top of those, these are translated ~nonsense~ text that aren’t suited for translation. Most likely a list of English texts are handed to translators without intended use cases or extra contexts well communicated to them. Some of texts are only correct in literal sense only or acceptably only in translated literature only, and still passing reviews. Edit: “nonsense” was way too harsh of a word
henchc 5y ago
They are supposed to mimic what an intelligent voice assistant might encounter, so not always grammatical, but both the original dataset and the localizations were crowdsourced. Despite efforts at quality control some errors might persist, but as mentioned by another commenter shortened or cutoff phrases or re-phrasings are common.
wging 5y ago
Experience (both from work on either Alexa or a similar system in previous years, and as an actual user) tells me that yes, people do often say things that don't "look correct". From personal experience I know that something about the pressure of knowing that the device will detect the end of your utterance before you're ready, if you're silent for too long, can end up rushing you and scrambling your brain a little. Even if you ordinarily have near-perfect instincts for English grammar and sentence construction, you can end up saying some pretty weird things. But thinking of them as user mistakes, and framing them as "correct" or "incorrect", is counterproductive here. It may be a useful distinction as a learner, when you're trying to improve your own command of the language. But when they're inputs to your system, you have to do your best to do what the user meant, if that's possible to infer. All three of your examples are actually clear, if nonstandard (play music again; tell me what album the currently playing music is from; list my alarms). So a system that takes these as input should handle them as valid requests, not classify them as "incorrect". It might be different for a system designed to teach 'proper' English, rather than a system designed to enact the user's will.
Tozen 5y ago
Looks like a sentence merged from separate ones. In that context, you could derive multiple intentions. So while not grammatically correct, it could still be useful. - "i want to play that music one again" I want to play that music again. I want to play that one again. I want that music again. Play that music again. Play that one again.

bagels 5y ago

These seem like it probably things people said to Alexa. There is probably a combination of speech recognition errors and actual ungrammatical speech happening. Spoken word is often ungrammatical.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
It’s kinda wild to think about how incomplete written language is compared to spoken language. Punctuation does a lot of heavy lifting. If I write “I think well the I mean what album is this the song thats playing from” it takes some work to parse, but that’s what an ASR system has to do. A more human transcription might be “I think-- well the-- I mean, what album is this (the song that’s playing) from?”
usr1106 5y ago
> These seem like it probably things people said to Alexa. That could be an explanation. But some people made fun of Alexa and there was no human to filter out the nonsense: In German I see: "putzen ist gut staub ist so schlecht mach jetzt deinen zauber sauber mein teppich" (cleaning is good dust is so bad make your miracle cleanly my carpet)
numpad0 5y ago
On top of those, these are translated ~nonsense~ text that aren’t suited for translation. Most likely a list of English texts are handed to translators without intended use cases or extra contexts well communicated to them. Some of texts are only correct in literal sense only or acceptably only in translated literature only, and still passing reviews. Edit: “nonsense” was way too harsh of a word

henchc 5y ago

They are supposed to mimic what an intelligent voice assistant might encounter, so not always grammatical, but both the original dataset and the localizations were crowdsourced. Despite efforts at quality control some errors might persist, but as mentioned by another commenter shortened or cutoff phrases or re-phrasings are common.

wging 5y ago

Experience (both from work on either Alexa or a similar system in previous years, and as an actual user) tells me that yes, people do often say things that don't "look correct". From personal experience I know that something about the pressure of knowing that the device will detect the end of your utterance before you're ready, if you're silent for too long, can end up rushing you and scrambling your brain a little. Even if you ordinarily have near-perfect instincts for English grammar and sentence construction, you can end up saying some pretty weird things. But thinking of them as user mistakes, and framing them as "correct" or "incorrect", is counterproductive here. It may be a useful distinction as a learner, when you're trying to improve your own command of the language. But when they're inputs to your system, you have to do your best to do what the user meant, if that's possible to infer. All three of your examples are actually clear, if nonstandard (play music again; tell me what album the currently playing music is from; list my alarms). So a system that takes these as input should handle them as valid requests, not classify them as "incorrect". It might be different for a system designed to teach 'proper' English, rather than a system designed to enact the user's will.

Tozen 5y ago

Looks like a sentence merged from separate ones. In that context, you could derive multiple intentions. So while not grammatically correct, it could still be useful. - "i want to play that music one again" I want to play that music again. I want to play that one again. I want that music again. Play that music again. Play that one again.