(From CAS news) CAS scientists and their collaborators have recently announced the successful development of a computer program which gives highly-accurate automatic evaluation for oral Mandarin tests.

Open lab experiments carried out at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University turned out that more than 98 percent of the results given by the computer evaluation system were almost identical to those given by senior linguists, according to Prof. JU Qi, deputy director of the CAS Institute of Acoustics (IoA). Besides, the system demonstrated high accuracy and high stability during operation.

The project, a milestone progress in computerized scoring of the Chinese Mandarin (or Putonghua, the standard lingua franca of China), is a joint effort of the IoA-affiliated ThinkIT Speech Laboratory, the CAS Institute of Software and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

The program can evaluate an examinee's pronunciation of monosyllabic and disyllabic words in PSK tests, namely Putonghua Shuiping Kaoshi or Putonghua Proficiency Test. It will soon be introduced to Mandarin Chinese exams in Hong Kong's middle schools and universities.

The experiment and assessment of the program was chaired by Prof. FU Yonghe, former vice director of the State Language Work Committee. Also present were renowned experts in linguistics, phonetics and computer technologies in China.

The R&D staff of the project gave a report to the evaluation committee, and demonstrated the entire operation process. After one and a half days of discussion, the experts agreed that the core technologies of this program have already reached world-leading level in the field.

The computer evaluation system will help improve the laborsaving and more scientific scoring of Mandarin, and promote its popularization both home and abroad, Prof. Fu remarked.