Praat Tutorial

Praat Tutorial === <style> .button { font-family: Menlo; font-size: 90%; background-color: DarkGray; color: white; padding: 5px; border-style: solid; border-color: white } .highlight { color: MediumTurquoise; font-weight: bold } .markdown-body h2 { margin-top: 50px } .markdown-body h3 { margin-top: 30px } img { width: 50%; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } div:has(> .meme) { background-color: AntiqueWhite; padding: 20px; } </style> <div> <img src="https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hy-KMFZ1a.jpg" class="meme" alt="Praat icon meme"> </div>  ## Praat Basics ### The two windows - Praat Objects window - Praat Picture window ### Recording sounds - Objects window: - New $\rightarrow$ Record mono Sound... $\rightarrow$ Sampling frequency: 44100 Hz $\rightarrow$ Record - Record the following English words: - *a**b**out* - ***b**at* - ***p**at* - Name: [your_new_filename] - Save to list / Save to list & Close - Now you can see a sound object in your Objects window ### Saving files on your Laptop - Click on the sound object that you want to save - Save $\rightarrow$ Save as WAV file... ### Opening existing files - Open $\rightarrow$ Read from file... ### Observing & editing your sound objects - Click on a sound object - View & Edit - Editor window: Waveform & Spectrogram - Observe & compare the stop consonants [b] (*a**b**out*), [p] (***b**at*), and [pʰ] (***p**at*) in the spectrogram ### Reducing noise visibility in the spectrogram - Editor window: Spectrogram $\rightarrow$ Spectrogram settings - Change the Dynamic range (dB) to 50 dB (default value in Praat: 70 dB) ### Showing pitch, intensity, and formants in the spectrogram - Pitch - Pitch $\rightarrow$ Show pitch - blue line - Intensity - Intensity $\rightarrow$ Show intensity - yellow line - Formants - Formants $\rightarrow$ Show formants - red dots - Change formant ceiling: - Formants $\rightarrow$ Formant settings... $\rightarrow$ Adjust formant ceiling (Hz) <div>Female: ≈ 5500 Hz</div><div>Male: ≈ 5000 Hz</div> :::warning Observe where the blue line (representing **pitch**) disappears. What type of segments are associated with these positions? ::: ### Slicing sounds - Select the portion that you want to slice - Editor window: Sound $\rightarrow$ Extract selected sound (time from 0) - You will see your extracted sound object in the Objects window - Objects window: Rename... $\rightarrow$ [your_new_filename] :::info **Exercise 1** - Extract the 3 words *about*, *bat*, and *pat* into separate sound objects (Click Play to check whether you extracted the right word) - Save the 3 sound objects on your laptop ::: :::info **Exercise 2** - Open the sound object of the word *pat* - Identify the aspiration of [pʰ] in the spectrogram - Try removing a portion of the aspiration (Edit $\rightarrow$ Cut or Cmd/Ctrl + x) - Does the word sound like *pat* or *bat* after the removal of aspiration? Note: You can also try pasting the aspiration to your *bat* sound object ::: ### Annotating with TextGrids - Select a sound file that you want to annotate - Objects window: Annotate > $\rightarrow$ To TextGrid... - Interval tier & Point tier - E.g. All tier names: word segment misc - E.g. Which of these are point tiers: misc - A TextGrid object will appear in your Objects window - Select the sound object and its corresponding TextGrid object at the same time $\rightarrow$ View & Edit - To open the built-in IPA table, click on the pink arrow at top right corner :::info **Exercise 3** - Annotate the voicing onsets of the [b, p, pʰ] - Annotate where the release bursts are for [b, p, pʰ] - Calculate the **voice onset time (VOT)** of [b, p, pʰ] in your recording $VOT\;=\;voicing\;onset\;-\;stop\;release$ :::