Improving Accent Conversion with Reference Encoder and End-To-End Text-To-Speech

Understand

Accent conversion (AC) transforms a non-native speaker's accent into a native accent while maintaining the speaker's voice timbre.

• In this paper, we propose approaches to improving accent conversion applicability, as well as quality.
• First of all, we assume no reference speech is available at the conversion stage, and hence we employ an end-to-end text-to-speech system that is trained on native speech to generate native reference speech.
• To improve the quality and accent of the converted speech, we introduce reference encoders which make us capable of utilizing multi-source information.