An Overview of Pronunciation Software

Deborah Healey

References and Resources Online

Overview of Software for Pronunciation

Title Publisher Description Cost Comments Reviews
Accent Lab Accent Technologies Exercises on sounds, formant maps, waveforms $40 Visuals are hard to interpret, but the price is very reasonable. Authorable. Windows only. Beare
American SpeechSounds SpeechCom Professional version has authoring $70 personal, $300 professional Windows only. Beare
Better Accent Tutor Better Accent Exercises $125 Windows and Macintosh.
Connected Speech Protea Textware Exercises with video; focus on suprasegmentals $120 North American form; Australian and British now available. Windows only. Darhower
Course in English Pronunciation Sky Software House Exercises with video $45 British English. Sounds, words and sentence-level activities in an organized curriculum. Windows only.
Clear Speech Works Now sold by DynEd Exercises, specialized and vocational vocabulary work $80 Exercises can be grouped by L1. Windows and Macintosh. Beare
Earobics Step 1; Earobics Step 2; Earobics for Adolescents and Adults
Cognitive Concepts Adaptive game format; record-keeping $60 2 users total (home); $300 12 users for ea level Three levels, one for younger and one for older children, and one for teens and adults. Designed for native speakers in speech clinics. Windows and Macintosh.
Ellis Master Pronunciation ELLIS Exercises, including tongue twisters, speech acts; native language help $500 Explanations in over 20 languages. Windows only.
English Easy: Vowels and Consonants Greenwood Multimedia Canadian English pronunciation in a cultural context $40 each (?) Explanations in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese. Windows only.
Hear Say for All Communication Disorders Technology Exercises, graphic representations $75 Also available: special versions for Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish speakers. Windows only.
Pro-Nunciation Sound Lab and Mouth Exercises Pro-Nunciation Exercises on individual sounds and intonation patterns; mouth diagrams $55 British or American English. Right-click on any word to hear it and see mouth diagrams. Windows only.
Pronunciation in American English AmEnglish.com Stress, intonation, and rhythm emphasized in exercises $30 site Some record management. TOEIC-related content. Windows only.
Pronunciation Power 1 and 2 English Computerized Learning Focus on phonemes; some work on intonation. Mouth views in cutaway and video format; waveforms $145 (PP1); $85 (PP2); $195 both American English. Windows and Macintosh. Beare, Kellermann
Sky Compilation Disk 1: Pronunciation Sky Software House A set of pronunciation programs. $45 British English. Minimal pairs, stress and rhythm, phonemic alphabet. Extensive on-screen explanation makes this best for high-intermediate and advanced learners. Windows only.
Sounds English, Alphabet Academy, Fit or Fat Geoff Taylor Exercises and games to practice phonemes and IPA; recorded and synthesized speech freeware Black and white graphics. Macintosh only.
Speak Out PerLingua Software Role-playing game using speech recognition $10 shareware Language in context - students focus on accuracy to play the game. Macintosh only.
Speech Prism Language Vision A variety of visual representations for work on sounds. Relatively easy to compare visually to model. $130 Designed for speech therapy. No sounds included. Record-keeping. 30 day trial from website. Windows only.
Vowel Target Language Vision Game to improve vowel sounds - try to approximate the model to hit the target $60 Not easy to match the sound, even for a native speaker. Record-keeping. 30 day trial from website. Windows only.
Video Karaoke PerLingua Students add their voices to video clips $20 Several different settings to choose from, all conversational. Macintosh only.
VideoVoice Micro Video Speech therapy program; many visualizing activities $2500 Comes with digitizing equipment; no sounds included. Windows and Macintosh.
VisiPitch; Video Phonetics Kay Elemetrics Pitch visualizations; video and sound samples useful for pitch and waveform analysis   Requires its own hardware. Software only-version available as Sona-Speech II.

Contact information
Deborah Healey, Ph.D.
Director, English Language Institute
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-1632
541-737-6985
Fax: 541-737-0871
Email Deborah
oregonstate.edu/~healeyd


http://oregonstate.edu/~healeyd/pron.html
Last updated 3 January 2006 by D.Healey