A simple script for practicing for the TOEFL exam. It uses espeak to read questions from a file, and for each question records the response and plays it back.

toefl-speaking-trainer.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
	echo "usage: $1 questions_file output_dir"
	exit -1
fi

questions_file=$1
output_dir=$2

prepare_time=15
speak_time=45


function countdown() {
	start=$((`date +%s` + $1))
	while [ "$start" -ge `date +%s` ]; do
		left=$(($start - `date +%s`))

		echo -ne "\r$2: `printf %2d $left`s"
		sleep 1
	done
}

function speak() {
	espeak -ven+m3 -s150 "$1" 2&>/dev/null
}

while read line; do
	number=`echo $line | cut -f1 -d"."`
	question=`echo $line | cut -f2- -d"."`

	# display and say the question
	speak "Next question."
	echo "Q: $question"
	echo ""
	speak "$question"
	sleep 1

	# wait until the preparation time is up
	speak "You have $prepare_time seconds to prepare."
	countdown $prepare_time "> time to prepare"

	sleep 1

	# start counting speaking time and record the speech
	speak "Start speaking. You have $speak_time seconds."
	echo ""

	destination_file="$output_dir/${number}.wav"
	arecord -f cd -q $destination_file &
	arecord_pid=$!
	countdown $speak_time "> time to speak"
	kill $arecord_pid
	speak "Time's up. Your speech will be played back."

	aplay $destination_file

	sleep 5
done < $questions_file