Method and system of speech evaluation

A tangible, non-transitory computer program product comprising a storage medium on which is stored computer readable program code, the program code, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to implement a method of user speech performance evaluation with respect to a reference performance for which a phoneme mark-up is available, the method comprising the steps of:

• capturing input speech from a user and formatting it as frames;
• and
• for a respective frame of the input speech,
• generating probability values for a plurality of phonemes;
• generating a probability value for a phoneme class based upon the generated probability values for a plurality of phonemes belonging to that phoneme class;
• and
• for a plurality of frames of the input speech,
• averaging the phoneme class probability values corresponding to the plurality of frames of the input speech;
• and
• calculating a user speech performance score based upon the average.

An entertainment device for evaluating a user speech performance with respect to a reference performance for which a phoneme mark-up is available, the entertainment device comprising;

• an audio input operable to capture input speech from a user and format it as frames;
• a phoneme probability generator operable to generate probability values for a plurality of phonemes;
• a phoneme class probability generator operable to generate a probability value for a phoneme class based upon the generated probability values for a plurality of phonemes belonging to that phoneme class;
• an averaging logic operable to average phoneme class probability values corresponding to a plurality of frames of the input speech;
• and
• a calculating logic operable to calculate a user speech performance score based upon the average.