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As a non-native English learner, I wonder if there is some software that can check the pronunciation automatically: a user speaks into it, and the program reports some type of assessment, like “you sound 70 percent native”.

I don’t mean exactly this behavior, I’m just looking for any working tool for automatic pronunciation checking (i.e. checking by program and not by a human ear), maybe along with the intonation. To be precise, I’m learning RP accent aka BBC English, and I’m looking for software that can handle this particular accent.

I’ve googled quite a lot before asking my question here, but I didn’t find anything similar. But being not only a English learner, but also a software engineer, I’m sure that modern technology is fully capable of evaluating the “nativeness” of the speech. Of course, not at the level of a native human speaker, but perhaps quite sufficient for the training.

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  • You may want to ask on Software Recommendations. I would move this there for you, but I believe they have requirements like mentioning which operating system, and I wouldn’t want your question to get a bad reception.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 10, 2019 at 21:41
  • It would look quite revealing if a question about software tool for learning English is out of place both on the site for English learners and on the site for software recommendations. :-)
    – user104535
    Nov 10, 2019 at 22:06
  • More than that: if I ever find the software I’ve asked for, I won’t be able to answer my own question here because I will never have enough reputation on this meta site. Some weird kind of censorship, I think.
    – user104535
    Nov 10, 2019 at 22:14
  • You may want to take the tour and read What topics can I ask about here? in help center. Requests for resources, like software or book recommendations, are off-topic on the main site, although we sometimes move them to the meta site if we think it's possible someone might be able to help. I would have migrated your question to Software Recommendations, but it doesn't meet their quality guidelines because it's missing what platform you would like the software to run on.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 11, 2019 at 13:01
  • Yes @ColleenV, I have already realized that I was mistaken when I had not taken the cultural differences into account. In language-learning communities of my country, it is not only customary but also highly encouraged when people ask for tools and resources to help with their learning, and other people suggest these resources. It looks really unwonted to me if this practice is off-topic, but if your culture doesn’t endorse using tools and resources in language learning, then all I can do is understand and accept.
    – user104535
    Nov 11, 2019 at 13:42
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    @HydrochoerusHydrochaeris It's not aversion to "using tools and resources" that inhibits questions of this sort -- it's the SE goal of coming up with the single best documentable answer. Requests for resources are inherently opinionated and often very broad, so we tend to push these off the main site onto meta.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Nov 11, 2019 at 14:01
  • the program reports some type of assessment, like “you sound 70 percent native”. -- That would be a neat trick, especially considering that even in places like Great Britain there are several local dialects.
    – Robert Harvey
    Nov 27, 2019 at 17:20

2 Answers 2

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Speak like which native? British English has different pronunciations to American and Indian English, let alone Australian, NZ, Scottish and Irish. Within British English, there is RP, South London, Cockney, Devon, Yorkshire, etc, etc.

One problem that springs to mind is that to say 'x% like a native' you really need to check the phrase/sentence for grammar and possibly sense. This is a completely different problem to pronunciation validation and I think vastly more complex and slightly different for each English-variant.

What does exist is text-to-speech programs. Find one with the accent you want and get it to read phrases to you. Repeat them. Record both and play them back. Not ideal, but available.

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  • I’ve explicitly mentioned the RP in my original post. By checking the pronunciation I meant only phonetics and intonation. Suppose my goal is just to read aloud existing texts in English, so I don’t need to consider grammar and meaning. If I simply listen to a sample and try to repeat it, I usually cannot judge whether I succeed or not, so text-to-speech tools are not a solution in my case.
    – user104535
    Nov 11, 2019 at 18:28
  • Sure, you want the RP version but if I'm going to develop it I need to consider that the US is a far bigger market.
    – simon at rcl
    Nov 12, 2019 at 11:50
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    There's more than one dialect and accent in the US.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Nov 13, 2019 at 15:17
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You can have a look at Learning English pronunciation for some programs to learn English pronunciation.

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