INTERSPEECH 2009 10th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association Brighton, United Kingdom September 6-10, 2009

Speech Rate and Pauses in Non-Native Finnish

Minnaleena Toivola, Mietta Lennes, Eija Aho

University of Helsinki, Finland

In this study, the temporal aspects of speech are compared in read-aloud Finnish produced by six native and 16 non-native speakers. It is shown that the speech and articulation rates as well as pause durations are different for native and non-native speakers. Moreover, differences exist between the groups of speakers representing four different non-native languages. Surprisingly, the native Finnish speakers tend to make longer pauses than the non-natives. The results are relevant when developing methods for assessing fluency or the strength of foreign accent.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Toivola, Minnaleena / Lennes, Mietta / Aho, Eija (2009): "Speech rate and pauses in non-native Finnish", In INTERSPEECH-2009, 1707-1710.