Praat is a powerful acoustic analysis software application used by phoneticians, speech scientists, linguists, audiologists, and anyone interested in measuring or manipulating speech. It was created by Paul Boersma and David Weenink who are two extremely smart, and odd (in the best possible sense), language scientists. As you use Praat, you will come to realise that the interface and design decisions reflect the personalities of its creators.
Upon launching Praat, you are presented with two windows: Praat Objects and Praat Picture. I would say that 99% of time, the user immediately closes Praat Picture. Praat Objects is where the action lies. At first glance, there isn’t a lot going on: an empty Objects list, and not many buttons showing. Unlike most software apps, the command buttons available to the user change depending on the currently selected Object type. So, in order to get started, you need to load or “read in” a file. In most instances,
To read in a sound file, click Open then Read from file… and select the file that you want to open. That file will be loaded into Praat as a Sound object and a number of command buttons will appear on the right side of the Praat Objects window.