Acoustic models for speech recognition are automatically generated utilizing trained acoustic models from a native language and a foreign language. A phoneme-to-phoneme mapping is utilized to enable the description of foreign language words with native language phonemes. The phoneme-to-phoneme mapping is used for training foreign language words, described by native language phonemes on foreign language speech material. A new phonetic lexicon is created containing foreign language words and native language words transcribed by native language phonemes. Robust native language acoustic models can be derived utilizing foreign language and native language training material. The mapping may be used for training a grapheme to phoneme transducer (i.e., foreign language to native language) to generate native language pronunciations for new foreign language words.