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Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

sayafter.me

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Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#61

Post by znt »

Caligula wrote: post #40
znt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I didn't know about this product. It looks really advanced, would be good opportunity to see the other players in the market. I think one advantage I have over this product is, SayAfter.me stores ever growing stats of word/phrase pronunciation attempts from all users. Later on it can build custom exercises depending on the background of a particular user. I will be able to say "You are Spanish, other Spanish user…

Are you using google speech api? Site looks great!

Yup, voice records are generated via Google speech API. Voice recognition is webkit speech input, only supported in Google Chrome. The application itself uses AngularJS.

This thing wouldn't have been possible without Google really.

Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#62

Post by znt »

yansuck wrote: post #45
znt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the video does not have correct grammar in some sentences. Actual human speech is on the roadmap but not until I fix the main issue, which is finding a repeatable marketing/sales cycle. Open to suggestions though!

Good job for the work. But seriously, I don't think you even have a MVP yet. If the purpose of this site is to correct people's accent, having a generate voice(huge electronic accent) is not acceptable at all.

You are right, robotic accents is not helpful (but hilarious though).

This app is mainly aimed at fixing the incorrect pronunciation of words, rather than the accent. If I ever get to add real human voices, then it will be even better.

Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#63

Post by vl »

znt wrote: post #30
rabino wrote: post #21

"Repetition makes the master". I'd suggest you tweak the UX so I need to repeat each word / phrase a couple of times before passing to the next level. Speaking of which... you could gamify this in like 200 different ways.

That is a very good idea, I will add this option to the current exercise flow. Thanks!

It would be really useful to replay what user said, or even better, replay incorrectly pronounced word and then correct pronunciation. Right now there is no good way for user to correct mistakes, even if it's clear that there is a mistake.

Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#65

Post by znt »

dsrguru wrote: post #54
znt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noted, I tried to use "simple language", so it wouldn't scare off non-technical people. I think I got it way too simple. Thanks.

If you simplify an explanation, it still needs to do the explaining, even if it's in the form of a high-level overview. I don't even see mention of the dialect you're teaching. Especially since you're targeting people in the STEM industry (people who tend to value knowledge and precision), I'd recommend having a more specific description available for those who want, even if it's not the first message that greets the…

Thank you for the detailed information.

The only feedback the user gets is a score for the current phrase, and highlighting of the words that he has mispronounced.

For example: If the phrase was "Where is the closest hospital?" but you said "Where is the closest clinic?", the application would highlight correct words in green and incorrect ones (hospital in this case) in orange/red depending on the word distance of "clinic" to "hospital")

When I say "word distance" I mean Levenshtein Distance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance

I never thought about giving basic information about English phonology, but you make a very valid point. I will look into this further, and please let me know about any detailed resources about this subject.

Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#66

Post by znt »

vl wrote: post #63
znt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very good idea, I will add this option to the current exercise flow. Thanks!

It would be really useful to replay what user said, or even better, replay incorrectly pronounced word and then correct pronunciation. Right now there is no good way for user to correct mistakes, even if it's clear that there is a mistake.

Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately currently neither webkit-speech-input nor Web Speech API supports recording of the user voice input.

I will look for alternative solutions though.

Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#68

Post by znt »

darklajid wrote: post #64

I'll give it a try to remove/lessen my German accent.. :-) Btw: Yes, my email address ends in .de - your registration form seems to think I mistyped and suggests that I change that to .net. Intentional, even for valid TLDs?

I just use the mailcheck plugin with default settings (https://github.com/Kicksend/mailcheck)

If this keeps happening often maybe I should use my own domain list.

Thanks for the feedback.

Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#69

Post by oelmekki »

znt wrote: post #68
darklajid wrote: post #64

I'll give it a try to remove/lessen my German accent.. :-) Btw: Yes, my email address ends in .de - your registration form seems to think I mistyped and suggests that I change that to .net. Intentional, even for valid TLDs?

I just use the mailcheck plugin with default settings ( https://github.com/Kicksend/mailcheck ) If this keeps happening often maybe I should use my own domain list. Thanks for the feedback.

> if this keeps happening often maybe I should use my own domain list.

You probably should do it as soon as possible :

> The included default top level domains are com, net, org, info, edu, gov, co.uk, and mil.

Which means ... it excludes all regional non english TLDs. Pretty much a problem for a service that targets non english native speakers. :)

By the way, I am an english non native speaker that writes a lot of english through the internet but never ever speak english. This service is just perfect for me, thank you.

Re: Founder with an accent? Free offer from SayAfter.me

#70

Post by oelmekki »

A note about prices. I'm in need for such a service and thank you to provide it.

But $30/month is more that what I would give. For that price, I would expect to have a human teacher to review my progression from time to time and provide advices.

At $20/month, I would use the service for something like three or four month, until I decide I'm ready enough.

At $10/month, I would probably consider a permanent subscription.

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