METHODS, APPARATUS AND DATA STRUCTURE FOR CROSS-LANGUAGE SPEECH ADAPTATION

Adapted speech models produce fluent synthesized speech in a voice that sounds as if the speaker were fluent in a language in which the speaker is actually non-fluent. A full speech model is obtained based on fluent speech in the language spoken by a first person who is fluent in the language. A limited set of utterances is obtained in the language spoken by a second person who is non-fluent in the language but able to speak the limited set of utterances in the language. The full speech model of the first person is then processed with the limited set of utterances of the second person to produce an adapted speech model. The adapted speech model may be stored to a multi-lingual speech model as a child node of a root with an associated language selection question and branches pointed to the adapted speech model and other speech models, respectively.