Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Speech recog

I don't get it, I just can't get Speech Recognition (dictation) to work. I have tried it with four different machines, three different platforms, four different OS's, three different apps, and five different microphones. And I could never get accuracy better than at least one or two bad errors per sentence, in other words pretty useless.

15 comments:

  1. You should just take that gum out of your mouth :o)

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  2. Brennan's interim this message using the voice recognition on my android
    steve at work really really well

    I wonder why i insist on putting names of the first word or sentence

    This #### crap sucks

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  3. Eh, that was me - impressive isn't it?

    Not.

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  4. Not being skitty here, honest :-)
    Never having met you, I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but are you expecting / hoping for a good result with software that was probably invariably designed / evolved with 'English' as the prime language ... when you are quite possibly speaking English with what may be an undecipherable Danish accent (from the viwpoint of the software?
    Just a thought :-)

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  5. The thought has stuck me, but I think my English is above average for native English speakers. For example one of my neighbors, her dialect is so thick I have to ask her to repeat virtually everything she says.

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  6. Eo,
    Your English is clear but you do have a sort of accent. I know other Danish English speakers and I recognize it, although I could mistake it for German at times. I do not think that faint accent can create trouble on the speech recog, unless you see commonly repeated mistakes (a lot of v that should be th and so on).

    As English is a second laguage to me, I actually find educated non native speakers easier to understand than the average Joe met in the street. Their English is more like mine.
    I think the problem of speech recog is with English itself. Pronunciation is not fixed and vowels change too much for any software to cope. I heard that speech recog works better with fixed pronunciation languages like Italian, German and Spanish

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  7. Solution: Hire naked Polish secretary to do translation.

    Yes, Danish in English sounds slightly like German. Software doesn't like the difference in inflection and RRRRRRolling of the r's.

    Brush the Birdy.

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  8. Try sprinkling in some American English filler words to allow it to synchronize. Then later remove them with search-and-replace.

    Words such as "awesome", "great", "ass" and "terrorist".

    That should do the trick.

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  9. Maybe it's your accent. ;-)

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  10. So I should have read all those other comments. Actually it's true that English pronunciation is not standardized anywhere, so that can't be it.

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  11. I take your point well about the variations in pronunciation of English, even within the UK, by UK nationals ... and it often has nothing to do with regional accents!
    My partner originates from beyond these shores, and her English is spectacularly good ... better than most other people thatI know, and her technical knowledge of the language leaves me flabbergasted! :-)

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  12. I've found foreign speakers usually know more about the grammar, etc., than native speakers.

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  13. You may well have a point. I put it down to the fact that (most) foreign speakers of English have been 'educated' to do so in a structured, formal way, whereas the natives actually receive relatively little formal education in 'English' as a subject, certainly within the earlier years ... it's typically from the age of 16 years upwards, when pupils begin to choose options and specialise, that 'English' is taught to any great degree, and then only to those who have chosen it as an option, which they perceive to be a neccesary stepping stone towards whatever they are planning to do next with their further education.
    Funniest thing though (if it wasn't so bloody irritating!)is how many people, educated within certain European countries, have strong 'Americanese' accents to the their English, and often do not even realise it! :-)

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  14. Hollywood.

    I watched Top Gear recently, and they had an American visiting, and I found I understand American English much more readily than British English.

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  15. I put it down to the fact that (most) foreign speakers of English have been 'educated' to do so in a structured, formal way, whereas the natives actually receive relatively little formal education in 'English' as a subject

    That's what I assume to be the reason. It makes sense. When I was a lad we did learn some grammar in elementary school but it was in a kind of half-assed way.

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