1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

PRAAT INSTRUCTION

1. What is Praat?

Praat is a speech-analysis program designed by Paul Boersma and David Weenink at the University of
Amsterdam. It is a freeware program and can be downloaded from the Internet
(http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/download_win.html). See Figure 1.

Figure 1. Praat developers: Paul Boersma and David Weenink

2. What is Praat for?

Praat is a useful program to analyze speech. If offers a wide range of analyzing procedures, such as
spectrographic analysis (e.g., pitch analysis, formant analysis, amplitude analysis, intensity analysis)
and articulatory synthesis. In addition, a large amount of speech can be easily handled by using a
script. Therefore, this program is helpful for phoneticians, speech pathologists, and general linguists.

3. How to use Praat.

When Praat is opened, two windows will automatically pop up. See Figure 2.

1
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Figure 2. The left window denotes Praat objects. The right window indicates Praat pictures.

Speech analysis is done in the left window. On the top menu of the window, there are four menus:
Praat, New, Read, and Write. Through these menu commands a new Praat script is usually created
and/or an old Praat script is opened, speech can be recorded, recorded files can be read, speech
analysis is done, and recorded speech is saved, etc. The right window is used for drawing graphs.

4. How is speech recorded?

Of the top menu, click on New to record a voice. See Figure 3.

Figure 3. Sub-categories of the menu, New

2
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

In this example, click on the top menu, Record mono Sound. Then the following window will appear.
See Figure 4.

Figure 4. Sound Recorder window

As can be seen in Figure 1, either Mono or Stereo should be chosen and then set up the sampling
frequency (or sampling rate). The default is 22050 Hz. To save at a better quality, choose 44100 Hz.
Then connect a microphone to the computer. Click on the menu, Record. See Figure 5.

Figure 5. The window after clicking on Record

In Figure 5, if Record is clicked, the recording will be under way. The green bar indicates the input is
being processed. If the bar becomes either yellow or red, the recording has problems. If this occurs,
check the meter where the green bars indicate the quality of the recording. The blue bar denotes the

3
 YONG CHEOL LEE

time limit for a recording. If it goes to the end of the gauge the recording is automatically stopped. To
stop recording, click on the button, Stop. Then name the file and click on Save to list. The recorded
file goes to the “Praat Object” window. See Figure 6.

Figure 6. The window to which the recorded file is sent

To save the recorded file onto your computer, click on the fourth menu, Write. See Figure 6. Then,
save the recorded file as a wav file.

Figure 7. Sub-categories of the menu, Write

4
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

4. How is pitch analysis done?

In order to analyze pitch, click on the menu, Read, and then choose Read from file in the sub-
categorizations in order to open a recorded file. See Figure 8.

Figure 8. This Praat Objects window shows the recorded file extracted from Read.

In Figure 8, there are a variety of options on the right side. For example, click on Edit and the
following window will appear. See Figure 9.

Figure 9. The waveform of the selected file.

On the top menu options of the given window, click on Pitch and on Show pitch to do pitch analysis.
A blue pitch contour will appear and represents pitch of the selected file. See Figure 10.

5
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Figure 10. The waveform and pitch contour (blue curves) of the selected file

In Figure 10, to get a local pitch of a particular position, select any part of the displayed waveforms.
Then click on Pitch and choose a Get pitch option as in Figure 11.

Figure 11. The window shows both a selected area and a Get pitch option in the Pitch menu.

In this example, if Get pitch is clicked, a different window will emerge and will show a mean pitch
value of the given area. See Figure 12.

6
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

Figure 12. The mean value of pitch in the given area

5. How is formant analysis done?

To analyze formants, click on the menu, Read, and then choose Read from file in the sub-
categorizations in order to open a recorded file. See Figure 13.

Figure 13. This Praat Objects window shows the recorded file extracted from Read.

In Figure 13, there are a variety of options on the right side. For example, click on Edit and the
following window will appear. See Figure 14.

7
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Figure 14. The waveform of the selected file

On the top menu options of the given window, click on Formant and on Show pitch in order to see
formants. Red dotted lines will appear that represent the first formant (F1) through the fifth formant
(F5) of the selected file. See Figure 15.

Figure 15. The waveform and formants (red dotted lines) of the extracted file

In Figure 15, to get a formant value of a particular position, select any part of the displayed
waveforms. Then click on Formant and choose a Get first formant, Get second formant, etc. option as
in Figure 11.

8
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

Figure 16. This window shows both a selected area and a Get formant option in the Formant menu.

If Get first formant is clicked, a different window will pop up, and a formant value will appear as in
Figure 17.

Figure 17. The mean value of pitch in the given area

7. How is intensity analysis done?

In order to analyze intensity, click on the menu, Read, and then choose Read from file in the sub-
categorizations in order to open a recorded file. See Figure 18.

9
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Figure 18. The Praat Objects window that shows the recorded file extracted from Read.

In Figure 18 there are a variety of options on the right side. For example, click on Edit and the
following window will appear. See Figure 19.

Figure 19. The waveform of the selected file

On the top menu options of the given window, click on Intensity and on Show intensity in order for
intensity analysis. A green line will appear that represents the intensity of the selected file. See Figure
20.

10
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

Ficture 20. The waveform and intensity (green line) of the extracted file

In Figure 20, to obtain an intensity value of a particular position, select any part of the displayed
waveforms. Then click on Intensity and choose the Get intensity option. See Figure 21.

Ficture 21. This window shows both a selected area and the Get intensity option in the Intensity menu.

If Get intensity is clicked, a different window will pop up that will show an intensity value for the
selected area. See Figure 22.

11
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Ficture 22. The mean value of intensity in the given area

8. How is duration analyzed?

In order to analyze duration, click on the menu, Read, and then choose Read from file in the sub-
categorizations in order to open a recorded file. See Figure 23.

Figure 23. This Praat Objects window shows the recorded file extracted from Read.

In Figure 23, there are a variety of options on the right side. For example, click on Edit and the
following window will appear with a waveform. See Figure 24.

12
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

Figure 24. Waveform of the selected file

Unlike other analyses such as formant, intensity, and pitch analyses, obtaining a certain duration is
simple. In Figure 24, for example, the value, 5.660861 seconds in the box represents the duration of
the given area.

9. How is fundamental frequency measured?

In order to measure fundamental frequency, click on the menu, Read, and then choose Read from file
in the sub-categories in order to open a recorded file. See Figure 25.

Figure 25. This Praat Objects window shows the recorded file extracted via Read.

In Figure 25, there are a variety of options on the right side. For example, click on Edit and the

13
 YONG CHEOL LEE

following window will appear. See Figure 26.

Figure 26. Waveform of the selected file

On the top menu options of the given window, click on Pitch and on Show pitch in order for pitch
analysis. A blue pitch contour will appear that represents the pitch of the selected file. See Figure 27.

Figure 27. The waveform and pitch contour (blue curves) of the selected file

In Figure 27, to acquire fundamental frequency, click on Pitch and choose a Pitch listing option. See
Figure 28.

14
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

.
Figure 28. The window shows both a selected area and a Pitch listing option in the Pitch menu.

In this example, if Pitch listing is clicked, a different window will emerge and show pitch values
taken out with time (s). See Figure 29.

Figure 29. Pitch values taken out with time in the given area

There are two options to draw a pitch contour, either Figure 28 or Figure 29. The first option is to use
a Draw visible pitch contour option in the Pitch menu. See Figure 30.

15
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Figure 30. This window shows both a selected area and a Draw visible pitch contour option in the Pitch menu.

In Figure 30, if the option clicked, then another window will appear. See Figure 31.

Figure 31. Draw visible pitch contour function

In this window, to draw a certain pitch contour, then click on OK. See Figure 32.

Figure 32. Pitch contour of the given area in the Praat Picture window

16
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

In order to convert the figure into a Word file, click on Copy to clipboard in the File menu. See Figure
33.

Figure 33. This window shows a Copy to clipboard option in the File menu of the Praat Picture window.

In this figure, first click on a Copy to clipboard function, then the figure can be converted to a Word
file (i.e., via copy and paste). See Figure 34.

김경준_1
149.311909 150.61856
500
Pitch (Hz)

75
149.3 150.6
Time (s)

Figure 34. The converted file extracted from the Praat Picture window

The second option to draw a pitch contour is to directly convert the pitch values into Excel files. First
copy the time and pitch values, save them in a memo file, open the file in an Excel file, and then make
a graph. To draw a better pitch contour, use trend lines (linear regression in mathematics) in order to
smooth over abrupt bumps and sharp edges. See Figure 35.

17
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Figure 35. Each graph denotes f 0 curves. The thinner solid line is a normal f 0 curve. The thick line indicates an
f 0 curve, refined by a trend line.

10. How is a waveform labeled?

A sound file can be divided into temporal intervals. In other words, a sentence can be divided into
smaller categories (e.g., phrases, words, syllables). The divided intervals can also be labeled. In order
to segment and label a sentence, first open a Praat Object window, then open a recorded file from
Read from file … in the Read menu. See Figure 36.

Figure 36. The Praat Objects window that shows the recorded file extracted from Read.

In Figure 36, there are a variety of options on the right side. For example, click on Annotate and
choose To TextGrid. The following window will appear. See Figure 37.

18
1 PRAAT INSTRUCTION

Figure 37. The default shape of a To TextGrid window

In Figure 37, there are two blanks: All tier names and Which of these are point tiers. In the case of the
former, we can replace the default words with those we would like to use. The latter can be ignored. If
OK is clicked, another list will appear in the Praat Objects window. See Figure 38.

Figure 38. This Praat Objects window shows a TextGrid file acquired from Annotate.

In Figure 38, in order to segment and label a given sound file, select both the Sound object and the
TextGrid object together, then click Edit. Following this procedure, a waveform will appear with a tier
(or tiers) and the ability to label a waveform. See Figure 39.

19
 YONG CHEOL LEE

Figure 39. TextGrid window

In this figure, there is a gray line on which there is a loophole. The cursor can be moved to a particular
time. If the loophole is clicked, it will change to a blue line. Between the blue lines, the selected
boundaries can be labeled. See Figure 40.

Figure 40. The TextGrid window shows labeled boundaries

As is shown in Figure 40, the sound file was divided into three boundaries. Each boundary is
demarcated by a line and the duration of each can be seen in the window.

20