Terminology

Transcription vs Alignment

Transcription (word-level text):

  • What was said (words)

  • Input data for training

  • Format: <fileid> <word1> <word2> ...

  • Example: arctic_a0001 hello world

  • No timing information

Alignment (time-aligned boundaries):

  • When each phone/word occurs (frame boundaries)

  • Output data from training/decoding

  • Format: Phone segmentation files (.phseg) with start/end frames

  • Example: Phone HH from frame 10 to 15, phone AH from frame 16 to 20

  • Includes timing information

Usage

  • Transcriptions are used as input to training (what words to expect)

  • Alignments are optional outputs from training (where phones occur in time)

  • Use --save-alignments to save alignments during CI training