Comments please about proposed Plug-in site

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The building of the plug-in website is underway in English and as with every page on the ATBar web site we would greatly appreciate corrections for the Arabic version as the pages are at present using the Google translate system with some help from our kind post graduates.

We would like to receive comments about the proposed design seen below for the main ATKit page and then for the plug-in page.

(select the images to enlarge them)

ATkit home page

ATkit home page

Plugin list page

Plugin list page

Plugin information page

Plugin information page

Plugin sets page

Plugin sets page

Word Prediction in Arabic.

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The next challenge other than our search for an open source option for an Arabic TTS is going to be word prediction.  I felt it was time to start to define the requirements and how realistic we can be when it comes to working with a language that does not have an easy way to see breaks in words as was discovered when working on the spell checker.

Word completion is available from Nuance as T9 Write in Arabic and I have seen this working on an Android phone.  It is not totally successful, but does at least try to offer the correct word at times when a few characters are entered. It is also possible to use the swipe technique on the Arabic onscreen keyboard, as illustrated in the above YouTube video – Continuous T9 in Bada 1.2 arabic .

So we are looking for an Arabic corpus that will allow us to offer alternative words once typing has begun as well as the next option.  This plug-in will help those using the toolbar to increase typing speeds and possibly ameliorate any word finding difficulties or severe spelling problems.   Word prediction can be helpful for those who tend to type at less than 25 words per minute and can jog the memory when a few words are listed.

Texthelp word prediction

Texthelp Read and Write Gold being used with the rich text editor in WordPress

The word chosen can be added to free text via a single keyboard entry – usually a function key but number keys can also be used.  On the left word prediction has been illustrated using TextHelp Gold Read and Write, that support this type of text entry.  ClaroRead, Easy

Tutor, Soothsayer, Co:Writer, Penfriend and several other desktop applications offer similar functionality as can be seen on Emptech

The ATKit word prediction plug-in is for use in a browser when writing on the web – filling in forms, using Google docs or creating a blog or wiki   The toolbar plug-in is not designed to replicate an app for text editing when writing messages on a phone or iPad and it will not be able to offer all the options available with a desktop solution. .

One issue already beginning to cause concern is the possible removal of Google Tashkeel  - This is a very useful service supporting the diacritic symbols. We are watching to see what will happen with several other Google services  disappearing such as Google dictionary.  However,  the Google transliteration service is still available which at least allows us to practice typing words in one language and then with the selection of the space bar see them converted to Arabic.

 

Documentation and ATkit Plug-in Progress

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ATKit plugins

Seb has recently been working on the documentation and the code behind the plugins for the ATKit making it possible to convert the ATBar into a modular system that allows users to choose which plug-ins they wish to have on the bar.

An example above shows how Readability has been added to list of plug-ins and the code is available on the ATKit wiki.

The spell checking issues appear to have been solved but testing is now at an important stage where we see if it works with sentences other than those we have in our test paragraph!

The free to users Arabic text to speech plug-in has been causing more concern as Acapela and Nuance still reign supreme and these voices can be licensed with the plug-in system,  but the gauntlet has been thrown down to see if we can explore other options!

Spell checking and the Arabic script

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The Arabic script is cursive and we have been exploring difficulties with accurate online spell checking. Fadwa Mohamad has kindly shared her knowledge about some of the issues that arise for those with dyslexia when it comes to the way Arabic characters are linked. Arabic has 28 letters to represent 34 phonemes and we have already discussed the issues of vowels and diacritics. Now we have learnt there is the thorny problem that only 22 of the 28 letters have two way connectors. The 6 remaining letters can only be joined in one way – so an Arabic word can contain one of more spaces. This means a word using some of these 6 letters, that can only be joined up in one way, may be divided in several places.

The other problem of note is that capital letters are not used in Arabic, so once again it may not be easy to see or work out where word boundaries occur. This along with the odd spacing obviously causes concerns for some readers, but may also be one reason why a spell checker can appear to gobble letters when it tries to correct a word!

To add to these issues the articles ‘the’,'a’ or ‘an’ in English tend to be joined to the following word in Arabic -  so those who can read Arabic will recognise the letters ‘AL’ or “Arabic: الـ‎, also transliterated as ul- and in some cases il- and el- ” according to Wikipedia. The reader has to also work out whether the ‘AL’ will be silent or voiced in some cases which impacts on text to speech engines and the lack of spacing can affect spell checking.

Finally Arabic letters may be formed in different ways depending on their position in the word.  So a shape may change from its isolated form to one that is different when seen as the initial letter in the word or the medial one or even the final one! This is how arabic-course.com describe the issue.

Arabic letter changes depending on the position in a word


The work to discover how we can overcome the letter gobbling spell checking and the mispronouncing speech synthesis continues!

 

Insight into the issues for open source TTS in Arabic.

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Over the summer the team have been investigating the issues around TTS in Arabic and Edrees Abdu Alkinani has completed his MSc report which has made interesting reading as it summarises many of the findings.   It was noted that Arabic TTS synthesis did not have the early successes of European languages due to the limitations in Natural Language Processing (NLP)  and the complexities of using diacritics as substitutes for vowel combinations. However, with the advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) plus automatic diacrtizers progress is being developed progress has been made in the commercial world where there are now several attractive Arabic synthesised voices as will be seen in an evaluation to follow.

Issue No 1 – Lack of diacritics on web pages.

Arabic diacritics

The Learning Resource - Arabic language

English speakers may wonder at the reasons for the difficulties with Arabic TTS, but it does not take more than a cursory glance at the written language to understand that having 14 different diacritic marks with 34 phonemes, 28 of which are consonants, and only six vowels that the combinations may cause TTS problems. As Eedris pointed out… ” كُتُبْ ” means books and ” كَتَبَ ” means wrote – the only difference you will notice is the type of marks used above the letters.

English vowel sounds

TEFL world wiki - English vowel sounds

This is compared to the English basic 12 vowel sounds with no accents or diacritics even though we may complain about our odd pronunciation of some written words – rough, cough, though, thorough and through – at least some of the letters are different and we cannot leave any out.   Yet this is what is happening with written Arabic on the web – the diacritics are being left out….. Number one problem for a text to speech engine.

Issue No 2 – The differences between the way the TTS is developed and the resulting output.

Research has shown that although there are now a few text to speech engines they are commercial and even these vary in quality.  The MBROLA project links to work carried out in the open source world, but at present it has been impossible to achieve success with the code offered in the various repositories for evaluation purposes.    However, Eedris has supplied the team with these comments based on the demonstrators offered by the various organisations and companies.

  1. MBROLA project
    MBROLA has two Arabic voices as a recorded audio file. The speed of speech is slow, and the quality poor. Moreover, the pronunciation is hard to understand – even for a an Arabic speaker.  The stress pattern is often incorrect and the distinction between words unclear. The most difficult words to understand have letters like, “ أ” ‘A’, “ ض” ‘th’, “ ل” ‘L’.
  2. Acapela Group
    Acapela offers two good quality male and female voices.  The pronunciation for words with and without diacritic marks is understandable, with accurate stress patterns. There are three letters which appear to cause some difficulty  “ ج” ‘j’, “ ا’ ‘a’, “ ك” ‘k’. The pronunciation of numbers in all situations is good.
  3. Nuance Vocalizer
    Nuance provide a very clear male voice with clear pronunciation. The only problem is that the system produces speech without taking into account diacritics. Words which have letters like “ ق” ‘q’, “ ش” ‘sh’, and “ ض” ‘th’ may cause problems but the speed of speech used in the online demo is good. Numbers are not clearly enunciated due to the lack of diacritics.
  4. Loquendo
    Loquendo offer a recording of a male and female voice on their site as the Arabic voice has only be available since October 2010. The system has good sound quality clear speech. The example on the website has diacritic marks but as it is a small sample it is hard to judge the overall quality but it appears to be good.


Issue No 3 – Further Development of eSpeak with Arabic.

The current version of MBROLA does not appear to run with the arabic voice files and there seem to be very few people who have had success.  So this is work in progress…

 


Hunspell forming the basis of the spellchecker in Arabic

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There are several spell checkers available as open source applications and much has been said about the quality of their output in English but there appears to be very little research when linked to the Arabic language.  However, Hunspell is used with many word processing packages.

Seb has succeeded in getting it to work with ATbar vers 2 which means that the Kit version is now almost in beta and there is the beginnings of an Arabic spell checker.

arabic spell checking

Internal Alpha testing of the spell checker.

Recent research by Mashael AlKadi using an ATBar simulation.

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I have just read an extremely interesting report by Mashael that looks into the issues around creating an Arabic speech recognition module for the ATbar and ATKit.  The report has a very useful analysis about the tools available and some important considerations which we will cover in more detail in the future.

Mashael collected data from 41 Arabic speaking post-graduate, under-graduate and secondary school students.   In brief the results showed that this group of users tended to browse for text (44%) and multimedia content (42%) with only 14% games or shopping and using social networks etc.  Few seemed to know or use off line services (90%) and this was commented upon in the conclusion as being a useful way of working with the toolbar when off line and should be considered in a similar way to the Silverlight approach – saving useful dictation results or working with forms at a later date.

Speech recognition command and control was not felt to always be useful and the group surveyed did not specify a need due to a disability, in fact 80% said they were happy to use the mouse and keyboard for browser control.  However, 35 of the users said they would use speech recognition for language learning, 20 selected translation, 16 school work, 15 web activities and 10 for work based reports.  High accuracy rates were required (90%) with the use of diacritics, despite the fact that these can cause problems for those with visual impairment and for the elderly.  61% felt that it would be useful to save dictated data for re-use.

Other research that Seb found showed that only 1% of websites are available in Arabic and Mashael found that 44% of her participants wanted to be able to use both English and Arabic for data entry and over half (59%) wanted to have text to speech to read back content.  They appeared to require accuracy over a large vocabulary in terms of speech dictation and its use on the web.

Although several users of the prototype ATbar shown by Mashael in the video below wanted extra features most were happy with the basic version and were content with the design and core functionality.  Mashael highlighted the usefulness of the kit approach with the introduction of a Braille API and the need for a flexible approach to language support.

 

ATbar Website Close to Deployment

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atbar site

Atbar.org

The ATbar website is at the stage where the framework is complete and the only thing missing is the content on a few minor pages. There are four sections to the website:

ATbar.org
— Kit subsite
— API subsite
— Arabic version site

kit.atbar.org

The Kit subsite is to hold the marketplace for additional modules for the toolbar, but until we have decided how that will be implemented we can’t start making the interface. Currently there is a placeholder with a “coming soon…” message.

api.atbar.org

The API subsite contains a Wiki for developers which will most likely list the code or have links to GitHub where it is currently published.

arabic.atbar.org

The Arabic site is the same as the English one expect for everything reading to from right to left. We will need someone to translate the ATbar.org pages into Arabic, but once that is done then it will be finished.

atbar arabic site

Downloading ATbar

The ATbar installer is available from the site now. Simply navigate to the download page and the automatic installer will pick the appropriate installation files depending on what browser you are using. Currently only Chrome and Safari are supported but we hope to include FireFox and IE in the future.

Remaining Tasks

Currently I am working on improving the instructions page to have detailed instructions of use however, these may need to change depending on what features we decide to use on ATbar v2.0. The Help and FAQ files are also under construction – any input with questions that you might think need answering would be appreciated.
The About and Privacy pages also need to be written (looking to E.A for input on those).

 

The re-building begins for ATbar!

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Seb has started building the new bar with a Chrome extension that makes it possible to have persistence so you can view more than one page with the bar staying in place.  It works with top pages but even with lower levels it is now easy to toggle the toolbar on and off from the menu bar of the browser.  You can also see when it is being used with a small white area appearing around the button.

ATbar in ChromeThe download for the Chrome extension is at the moment available from the Google Chrome site, but will soon be available on our new ATbar website.  Further extensions or add-ons are planned for the other browsers and once these are tested it will be onto offering more options for the user.