News: November 2017

New project to provide synthetic Welsh language voice for those in danger of losing their speech

The Language Technologies Unit (LTU) at Canolfan Bedwyr, Bangor University, has won a grant of £20,000 to develop a programme that will record the voices of people who are in danger of losing their ability to speak because of throat cancer or other health issue, and produce a synthetic naturally sounding version of their own voice. At present this service is only available to English speakers, but this will for the first time allow patients to continue to speak Welsh with their own voice, rather than a generic, synthetic voice that sounds robotic or like someone else. The LTU will work with health authorities and speech therapists to offer the service throughout Wales.

Publication date: 28 November 2017

Bangor University Internship

We have a new opportunity in the LTU for a Bangor University undergraduate to obtain a 150 hour internship btween February and May 2018 to transcribe more of the BBC’s substantial Welsh language archive. This is a brilliant opportunity for someone with an interest in transcription and language technology to increase their understanding of this field and work in an an interesting and stimulating environment. This post needs a student who is fluent in both oral and written Welsh. Full details are available here.

Publication date: 28 November 2017