Japanese students of English can check their pronunciation using a £300
machine that scores their performance. Developed by Fuji-Xerox in Japan, the
paperback book-sized device matches the wave patterns of the student against
those of an ideal speaker. When the student reads out loud a sentence displayed
on an LCD, the machine scores the reading and highlights words that were
mispronounced. The company admits, however, that even the Queen might score
poorly, because input speech is measured against American pronunciation.
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