Pronunciation Assessment fails to recognize several individual words

Question

Several single words fail to process when using the Pronunciation Assessment service in our code or in the portal tool. Many do work but we're not able to determine why some words work and others don't. We use this service in a classroom setting to evaluate single word pronunciation.

You can reproduce this by using the "Pronunciation Assessment" tool using the "Reading" feature and the "Enter your own" tab. For example, if you enter the word "Assessment" you don't get a response.

Here are a few examples that don't work: Experience, Automation, Possession, Attractive, Aggressive, Impressive, Individual, Microphone.

These words do work: Studio, Pronunciation, Apple

Answer 1

Hi Jason,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum, thank you for posting your query here!

The issue you're experiencing with the Pronunciation Assessment service may be related to the specific phoneme recognition capabilities of the service.

Some words may not be recognized due to their phonetic complexity or because they are not included in the model's training data. The service is designed to provide feedback on pronunciation accuracy, but it may have limitations with certain words, especially if they are less common or have multiple pronunciations.

To improve recognition, consider testing with variations of the words or using simpler alternatives. Additionally, ensure that the language and locale settings are correctly configured for the words you are testing.

Kindly refer the document below for any guidance.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/how-to-pronunciation-assessment?pivots=programming-language-objectivec#get-pronunciation-assessment-results

Thank You.