Speech Recognition

Hi all,

I have started tinkering with the built in Windows Speech Recognition within
my Vista operating system. I find it quite novel that you can talk to the
screen and your words come out on it. Granted that I have cheated at times
when it goes wrong and I have to type in corrections but I was wondering if
there are any experts out there who could tell me how to make this more
accurate?

I have also invested in a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking and
loaded it onto my machine today. I started tinkering with this but I
believe I have to learn completely different commands to that of Windows
Speech Recognition.

Does anybody know the difference? I have got the bug with this now and as I
am a teacher, it could come in very handy especially if I could get it to be
more accurate.

Thank you

Wendy

Wendy you can only really teach it (or should that be 'learn' it - depending
upon whether you listen to Toad or Ratty:-)) by using it on a daily basis
and correcting it with your voice rather than manually typing the
correction, eventually it will get used to your voice pattern and will type
the correct words. I think it is more a question of patience more than
anything else. I must admit Vista's speech recognition is far more intuitive
than that of say XP; and Windows 7 is even better still. I take it that you
have gone through the usual Vista speech recognition tutorial screens? Once
you have done that all you can really do is just talk and correct any
mistakes.

I haven't used Dragon Naturally Speaking since it first came out some years
ago, but i would imagine even that has improved dramatically from the days
when you used to read the tutorial and your voice pattern for each word was
stored in a separate file on your PC. I remember it used to take an age to
safe those voice pattern files:-)


--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..


"Wendy" <> wrote in message
news:#$#...
> Hi all,
>
> I have started tinkering with the built in Windows Speech Recognition
> within my Vista operating system. I find it quite novel that you can talk
> to the screen and your words come out on it. Granted that I have cheated
> at times when it goes wrong and I have to type in corrections but I was
> wondering if there are any experts out there who could tell me how to make
> this more accurate?
>
> I have also invested in a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking and
> loaded it onto my machine today. I started tinkering with this but I
> believe I have to learn completely different commands to that of Windows
> Speech Recognition.
>
> Does anybody know the difference? I have got the bug with this now and as
> I am a teacher, it could come in very handy especially if I could get it
> to be more accurate.
>
> Thank you
>
> Wendy

Thanks for the advice John,

Yes, I have done the tutorial in windows speech recognition and I completed
the same in dragon naturally speaking earlier today but I am finding the
dragon harder to learn because I have just got it.

How this all started was I was tinkering with windows speech recognition and
using it to take short notes for work. I was advised by a friend to invest
in a decent microphone and to try out dragon naturally speaking which I have
since invested in.

Are you saying that it learns as you go along and that you should correct it
by speaking also? You are right about one thing, I have not really got the
time to delve into it in great detail but I do find it intriguing and for
taking notes it is perfect.

I was advised by a good friend to invest in the dragon program because it
was easier to learn but he told me that I would have to learn a completely
different set of commands to that of windows speech recognition and as you
say, to learn it properly would probably take a great deal of time.

Wendy

"John Barnett MVP" <> wrote in message
news:#Z$...
> Wendy you can only really teach it (or should that be 'learn' it -
> depending upon whether you listen to Toad or Ratty:-)) by using it on a
> daily basis and correcting it with your voice rather than manually typing
> the correction, eventually it will get used to your voice pattern and will
> type the correct words. I think it is more a question of patience more
> than anything else. I must admit Vista's speech recognition is far more
> intuitive than that of say XP; and Windows 7 is even better still. I take
> it that you have gone through the usual Vista speech recognition tutorial
> screens? Once you have done that all you can really do is just talk and
> correct any mistakes.
>
> I haven't used Dragon Naturally Speaking since it first came out some
> years ago, but i would imagine even that has improved dramatically from
> the days when you used to read the tutorial and your voice pattern for
> each word was stored in a separate file on your PC. I remember it used to
> take an age to safe those voice pattern files:-)
>
>
> --
>
> --
> John Barnett MVP
> Windows XP Associate Expert
> Windows Desktop Experience
>
> Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
> Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
> Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
> Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com
>
> The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
> kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
> reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable
> for
> any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of
> the
> use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
> mail/post..
>
>
> "Wendy" <> wrote in message
> news:#$#...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have started tinkering with the built in Windows Speech Recognition
>> within my Vista operating system. I find it quite novel that you can
>> talk to the screen and your words come out on it. Granted that I have
>> cheated at times when it goes wrong and I have to type in corrections but
>> I was wondering if there are any experts out there who could tell me how
>> to make this more accurate?
>>
>> I have also invested in a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking and
>> loaded it onto my machine today. I started tinkering with this but I
>> believe I have to learn completely different commands to that of Windows
>> Speech Recognition.
>>
>> Does anybody know the difference? I have got the bug with this now and
>> as I am a teacher, it could come in very handy especially if I could get
>> it to be more accurate.
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> Wendy
>

John Barnett MVP wrote:
> Wendy you can only really teach it (or should that be 'learn' it -
> depending upon whether you listen to Toad or Ratty:-)) by using it on a
> daily basis and correcting it with your voice rather than manually
> typing the correction, eventually it will get used to your voice pattern
> and will type the correct words. I think it is more a question of
> patience more than anything else. I must admit Vista's speech
> recognition is far more intuitive than that of say XP; and Windows 7 is
> even better still. I take it that you have gone through the usual Vista
> speech recognition tutorial screens? Once you have done that all you can
> really do is just talk and correct any mistakes.
>
> I haven't used Dragon Naturally Speaking since it first came out some
> years ago, but i would imagine even that has improved dramatically from
> the days when you used to read the tutorial and your voice pattern for
> each word was stored in a separate file on your PC. I remember it used
> to take an age to safe those voice pattern files:-)
>
>

Hehe, despite several attempts for long periods of time each I was never
able to use Vista's speech recognition for anything useful, it was
taking me longer to make the corrections than to type it. Maybe that's
something to do with my UK accent (Simon Cowell ish) but oh dear, some
of the errors it made would have been downright embarrassing had I not
proof read everything very carefully

I have used Dragon Naturally speaking (v9.5 preferred) on an XP machine
in the past with impressive results. This software also has the ability
to transcribe text from recorded files which can be extremely useful,
and this feature appears to be missing from vista's software.

Though I have not taken the time to train vista's engine extensively, I
have been impressed with its "out of the box" accuracy. One of Dragon's
apparent strengths, though, is better correction features which are very
important for "on the job" re-training of the voice models. If the
correction is too time consuming, you won't use it. And if the accuracy
is only 95%, it becomes too time consuming to manually correct the same
errors repeatedly, plus you run the risk of overlooking embarrassing
mis-transcriptions that can be tough to catch without a careful and
focused review that can eat up all the time that dictation should have
saved.

I plan to take the time to really train vista's speech recognition and
I'll post back if it proves to be any better than typing (~50 words/min
for me).


--
bonzo777

bonzo777 wrote:
> I have used Dragon Naturally speaking (v9.5 preferred) on an XP machine
> in the past with impressive results. This software also has the ability
> to transcribe text from recorded files which can be extremely useful,
> and this feature appears to be missing from vista's software.
>
> Though I have not taken the time to train vista's engine extensively, I
> have been impressed with its "out of the box" accuracy. One of Dragon's
> apparent strengths, though, is better correction features which are very
> important for "on the job" re-training of the voice models. If the
> correction is too time consuming, you won't use it. And if the accuracy
> is only 95%, it becomes too time consuming to manually correct the same
> errors repeatedly, plus you run the risk of overlooking embarrassing
> mis-transcriptions that can be tough to catch without a careful and
> focused review that can eat up all the time that dictation should have
> saved.
>
> I plan to take the time to really train vista's speech recognition and
> I'll post back if it proves to be any better than typing (~50 words/min
> for me).
>
>

I had surgery a couple of years ago and apparently one side effect can
be a form of dyslexia. For some weeks I couldn't type worth a crap, and
still can't sometimes - it wasn't just missed spelling but also locating
letters on the keyboard. During that time speech recognition should have
been useful, but as you say I spent so much time correcting errors it
really didn't help much, but I had a good incentive to try and make it work.

Wendy, the whole object of the exercise is for Windows Speech Recognition is
for it to 'learn as it goes along'. It learns by noting what you say and
also what you correct, therefore you should speak the commands to correct
any mistakes. You not only need to get it to recognise the command to delete
one particular word but also selecting sentences etc. I haven't used Vista's
Speech Recognition for some time but in Windows 7 a list of options will
come up. For example, say you want to open Internet Explorer. You would say,
'open Internet Explorer.' If WSR didn't quite understand (as I say this is
Windows 7) a numbered list of options will appear with say 1. windows
explorer; 2 internet explorer; etc and you would then simply say 2 (because
you want to open Internet Explorer) followed by OK. On that command Internet
Explorer will open. Like everything you just need time and patience to learn
the command.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..


"Wendy" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Thanks for the advice John,
>
> Yes, I have done the tutorial in windows speech recognition and I
> completed the same in dragon naturally speaking earlier today but I am
> finding the dragon harder to learn because I have just got it.
>
> How this all started was I was tinkering with windows speech recognition
> and using it to take short notes for work. I was advised by a friend to
> invest in a decent microphone and to try out dragon naturally speaking
> which I have since invested in.
>
> Are you saying that it learns as you go along and that you should correct
> it by speaking also? You are right about one thing, I have not really got
> the time to delve into it in great detail but I do find it intriguing and
> for taking notes it is perfect.
>
> I was advised by a good friend to invest in the dragon program because it
> was easier to learn but he told me that I would have to learn a completely
> different set of commands to that of windows speech recognition and as you
> say, to learn it properly would probably take a great deal of time.
>
> Wendy
>
> "John Barnett MVP" <> wrote in message
> news:#Z$...
>> Wendy you can only really teach it (or should that be 'learn' it -
>> depending upon whether you listen to Toad or Ratty:-)) by using it on a
>> daily basis and correcting it with your voice rather than manually typing
>> the correction, eventually it will get used to your voice pattern and
>> will type the correct words. I think it is more a question of patience
>> more than anything else. I must admit Vista's speech recognition is far
>> more intuitive than that of say XP; and Windows 7 is even better still. I
>> take it that you have gone through the usual Vista speech recognition
>> tutorial screens? Once you have done that all you can really do is just
>> talk and correct any mistakes.
>>
>> I haven't used Dragon Naturally Speaking since it first came out some
>> years ago, but i would imagine even that has improved dramatically from
>> the days when you used to read the tutorial and your voice pattern for
>> each word was stored in a separate file on your PC. I remember it used to
>> take an age to safe those voice pattern files:-)
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> --
>> John Barnett MVP
>> Windows XP Associate Expert
>> Windows Desktop Experience
>>
>> Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
>> Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
>> Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
>> Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com
>>
>> The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
>> kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
>> reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable
>> for
>> any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of
>> the
>> use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
>> mail/post..
>>
>>
>> "Wendy" <> wrote in message
>> news:#$#...
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I have started tinkering with the built in Windows Speech Recognition
>>> within my Vista operating system. I find it quite novel that you can
>>> talk to the screen and your words come out on it. Granted that I have
>>> cheated at times when it goes wrong and I have to type in corrections
>>> but I was wondering if there are any experts out there who could tell me
>>> how to make this more accurate?
>>>
>>> I have also invested in a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking and
>>> loaded it onto my machine today. I started tinkering with this but I
>>> believe I have to learn completely different commands to that of Windows
>>> Speech Recognition.
>>>
>>> Does anybody know the difference? I have got the bug with this now and
>>> as I am a teacher, it could come in very handy especially if I could get
>>> it to be more accurate.
>>>
>>> Thank you
>>>
>>> Wendy
>>

Charlie, I too am from the UK and, strangely enough, when I first used
Speech recognition a whole paragraph would be written for me simply because
I 'breathed' on the microphone. I didn't have to say a word:-) Still at
least WSR is more responsive now compared to early versions of speech
recognition. But as you have a voice like Simon Cowell perhaps WSR has taken
a dislike to you, just like a vast majority of viewers have taken a dislike
to the 'real' Simon Cowell:-)

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..


"Charlie Tame" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
>
> John Barnett MVP wrote:
>> Wendy you can only really teach it (or should that be 'learn' it -
>> depending upon whether you listen to Toad or Ratty:-)) by using it on a
>> daily basis and correcting it with your voice rather than manually typing
>> the correction, eventually it will get used to your voice pattern and
>> will type the correct words. I think it is more a question of patience
>> more than anything else. I must admit Vista's speech recognition is far
>> more intuitive than that of say XP; and Windows 7 is even better still. I
>> take it that you have gone through the usual Vista speech recognition
>> tutorial screens? Once you have done that all you can really do is just
>> talk and correct any mistakes.
>>
>> I haven't used Dragon Naturally Speaking since it first came out some
>> years ago, but i would imagine even that has improved dramatically from
>> the days when you used to read the tutorial and your voice pattern for
>> each word was stored in a separate file on your PC. I remember it used to
>> take an age to safe those voice pattern files:-)
>>
>>
>
> Hehe, despite several attempts for long periods of time each I was never
> able to use Vista's speech recognition for anything useful, it was taking
> me longer to make the corrections than to type it. Maybe that's something
> to do with my UK accent (Simon Cowell ish) but oh dear, some of the errors
> it made would have been downright embarrassing had I not proof read
> everything very carefully

"Wendy" <> wrote in message
news:%23$%...
> Hi all,
>
> I have started tinkering with the built in Windows Speech Recognition
> within my Vista operating system. I find it quite novel that you can talk
> to the screen and your words come out on it. Granted that I have cheated
> at times when it goes wrong and I have to type in corrections but I was
> wondering if there are any experts out there who could tell me how to make
> this more accurate?
>
> I have also invested in a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking and
> loaded it onto my machine today. I started tinkering with this but I
> believe I have to learn completely different commands to that of Windows
> Speech Recognition.
>
> Does anybody know the difference? I have got the bug with this now and as
> I am a teacher, it could come in very handy especially if I could get it
> to be more accurate.
>
> Thank you
>
> Wendy

Use the program you're most comfortable with - if you want to use this, you
are going to spend a lot of time with it.

Speech recognition can *never* be 100% accurate, particularly in the English
language (results are better with languages such as Chinese). Homonyms are
a big part of the problem, but there are many other variables such as
inflection, accent, microphone placement, characteristics and quality,
ambient sounds, and dictionaries.

You will *always* have to re-read the entire text, and you will find some
real clangers as you do. This is not in any way "cheating" - it's a basic
necessity.

You must train both yourself and the voice-recognition system, and this will
take time. You must use a decent, directional microphone and turn off or
block other sound sources.

The only context in which speech recognition is remotely reliable is in the
case of a court reporter using a mask. In this case, there is one
highly-trained voice aimed directly at a fixed and contained microphone.
But even then, the text must be re-read and compared to the audio recording.

HTH
-pk

Bozo 777 Wrote:

> Though I have not taken the time to train vista's engine extensively, I
> have been impressed with its "out of the box" accuracy. One of Dragon's
> apparent strengths, though, is better correction features which are very
> important for "on the job" re-training of the voice models. If the
> correction is too time consuming, you won't use it. And if the accuracy
> is only 95%, it becomes too time consuming to manually correct the same
> errors repeatedly, plus you run the risk of overlooking embarrassing
> mis-transcriptions that can be tough to catch without a careful and
> focused review that can eat up all the time that dictation should have
> saved.

I have also been told the commands and correction features in Dragon are
superior to windows speech recognition but to balance that, the "show
numbers command" in windows speech recognition is a very clever where
everything is on the screen is numbered and you just choose the number of
the item or text you want.

How do you learn all the commands and correction features in Dragon? With
the program I have, it has given me a URL to download acrobat reader and I
gather this shows you all the commands and correction features, is this
right?

Wendy


"Patrick Keenan" <> wrote in message
news:#...
> "Wendy" <> wrote in message
> news:%23$%...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have started tinkering with the built in Windows Speech Recognition
>> within my Vista operating system. I find it quite novel that you can
>> talk to the screen and your words come out on it. Granted that I have
>> cheated at times when it goes wrong and I have to type in corrections but
>> I was wondering if there are any experts out there who could tell me how
>> to make this more accurate?
>>
>> I have also invested in a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking and
>> loaded it onto my machine today. I started tinkering with this but I
>> believe I have to learn completely different commands to that of Windows
>> Speech Recognition.
>>
>> Does anybody know the difference? I have got the bug with this now and
>> as I am a teacher, it could come in very handy especially if I could get
>> it to be more accurate.
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> Wendy
>
> Use the program you're most comfortable with - if you want to use this,
> you are going to spend a lot of time with it.
>
> Speech recognition can *never* be 100% accurate, particularly in the
> English language (results are better with languages such as Chinese).
> Homonyms are a big part of the problem, but there are many other variables
> such as inflection, accent, microphone placement, characteristics and
> quality, ambient sounds, and dictionaries.
>
> You will *always* have to re-read the entire text, and you will find some
> real clangers as you do. This is not in any way "cheating" - it's a
> basic necessity.
>
> You must train both yourself and the voice-recognition system, and this
> will take time. You must use a decent, directional microphone and turn
> off or block other sound sources.
>
> The only context in which speech recognition is remotely reliable is in
> the case of a court reporter using a mask. In this case, there is one
> highly-trained voice aimed directly at a fixed and contained microphone.
> But even then, the text must be re-read and compared to the audio
> recording.
>
> HTH
> -pk
>
>