Microsoft ' s ai-powered app can help you learn Chinese

If you are really want to learn to speak a foreign language, everyone knows this practice is essential. The challenge is to find someone with the time, patience and skill to help you practice pronunciation, vocabulary and gram Mar.

For people learning Chinese, Microsoft are aiming to fill this void with a new smartphone app that can act as a always AVA Ilable, artificially intelligent language Learning assistant.

The app aims to solve a problem it familiar to any language learner who has spent countless hours in crowded Classroo Ms listening to teachers, watching language-learning videos in home or flipping through of stacks to master VOC Abulary and grammar--only to feel woefully underprepared for real-world with conversations native.

"You are know Chinese, but if you are meet a Chinese person and you want to speak Chinese, there are no way you can do it If you are have not practiced, "explained Yan Xia, a senior development leads at Microsoft's", "Asia in Beijing. "Our application addresses this issue by leveraging our speech and natural language processing."

Teaching Assistant

The application is akin to a teacher ' s assistant, noted Frank Soong, principal researcher and the Beij ing lab ' s speech group, which developed the machine-learning models that power Microsoft Learn Chinese as "as" xiaoying , a chatbot for learning 中文版, the lab deployed in 2016 on the WeChat platform in.

(left to right) Yan Xia, Jonathan Tien, Frank Soong

"Our application isn ' t-a replacement for good human teachers," said Soong. "But it can assist by being available any time a individual has the desire or the time to practice."

Human teachers, he noted, are limited at the time they can devote to coaching students on their speaking skills even in th e Best of circumstances such as private, one-on-one sessions. The application ' s speech technology is robust enough to help students make progress toward their learning goals in the ABS Ence of a human partner.

The language learning technology relies a suite of AI tools such as deep neural networks that have been tuned by Soong ' s G Roup to recognize what the language learners are trying to say and evaluate the speakers ' pronunciation '. They are based on a comparison with models trained in data from native as as as the lab ' s speakers art text -to-speech synthesis Technology.

When individuals to the app, they get feedback in the form of scores, along and highlighted words that need and links to sample audio to hear the proper pronunciation.

The app includes lessons for both beginners and intermediates. The lessons for beginners mainly help users to learn short words and sentences, and then provide with lessons E and dialogue to practice Chinese that users have just learned. The lessons for intermediates are the interactive lessons this help users learn I to navigate Real-world scenarios As renting a apartment and ordering food in a restaurant.

"The app would work with you as a language learning partner," said Xia. "It'll chat with you and give your feedback based on what and are."

Language Independent, culturally dependent

The Microsoft Learn Chinese app is developed as part of a ongoing innovation incubation project at Microsoft ' s Asia rese Arch Lab in Beijing. The incubation project is one instance of a class of decades-long, within the lab on speech and language Technolog IES, including recent breakthroughs in speech recognition, natural language and understanding text-to-speech.

The machine-learning models and neural networks that power Microsoft Learn Chinese and xiaoying are language independent– They work equally as so when helping people learning to speak Chinese or 中文版. "If we are successful on one side, One direction, then we should is able to do," and "the other Otherside, "said Soong.

The differences between the Chinese and 中文版 language-learning applications are cultural, noted Jonathan Tien, director The engineering in the engineering innovation Group at Microsoft, Asia.

Tien's team performs what ' s known as deployment driven research–learning how the applications are used and tweaking models, interfaces and software architecture based on data collected from users. The process, he noted, is eye opening and rewarding.

"Chinese is we native language," he said, "but learning are not Chinese." It is difficult. During This process, we are learning a lot ourselves. "

The researchers are collaborating with human foreign language, to teachers best understand and practices Deploy the language learning technology in a way this augments the teachers ' approach by encouraging frequent -world language improvement.

"In today's technology environment, you can deploy your application and improve it based to users ' feedback all" Said Tien. "That's the beauty of deployment driven."

Scan the QR code and download Microsoft Learn Chinese for IOS platform.

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