Talking to the Computer
@owlwings (43907)
Cambridge, England
April 28, 2016 9:51am CST
Several years ago I participated in an experiment to do with speech to text. It was really to do with using speech to control functions in a car, such as the stereo, the heating, windscreen wipers and so on. It was a fascinating thing to do because all I had to do was to sit in the passenger seat whilst my subject drove and spoke words presented to him on the computer screen.
Things have moved on a great deal since then. We can now use phones hands-free, Siri and Cortana and Google are all extremely good at recognising speech and now I find that I can use a built in function in Windows to simply dictate what I want to say. That is what I'm doing now! I don't even need a microphone because my computer has one built in (I have yet to discover where it is but it seems to be picking up my voice quite well enough to get 90% of the words right. It does still need me to go through and edit quite a lot of the text and I think that it would work somewhat better if I spent some time training the app.
OK, so the above needed quite a lot of editing and I really wouldn't trust it to type what I want for a whole document. It's also not very quick and takes quite some time to recognise and print each phrase. I don't think that I could knit whilst posting on MyLot!
Have you ever tried the built-in Speech Recognition app in Windows? It has been available in all versions, as far as I know, since Windows Vista but it may need to be installed before you can begin to use it.
59 people like this
56 responses
@AbbyGreenhill (45494)
• United States
28 Apr 16
I like to type my own mistakes LOL!
6 people like this
@ramapo17 (30441)
• Melbourne, Florida
30 Apr 16
@AbbyGreenhill I like to type too as I have arthritis in my hands and typing is good exercise.,
@rebelann (113388)
• El Paso, Texas
30 Apr 16
@DaddyEvil I knew that daddyo. It's always so refreshing to find that so many Myloters who are tech savvy will help if someone asks.1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
30 Apr 16
@rebelann You are welcome to ask me for help any time, Ann! I will help if I can!
3 people like this
@LadyDuck (472507)
• Switzerland
29 Apr 16
@DaddyEvil I love to type but I hate to dictate, so I never really used the speech to text programs.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
29 Apr 16
@LadyDuck That makes sense for you, then. I am used to doing it either way. It just depends on what else I am doing which I do now.
2 people like this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
29 Apr 16
Pretty still uses Dragon Naturally Speaking on one pc while typing on another pc. She types very fast, too. How she keeps the two straight in her head while doing that, I have no clue. I would be lost after starting the second pc. LOL!
3 people like this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
28 Apr 16
@owlwings I remember when Creative introduced Prody Parrot as part of their Soundblaster Live software in the late 1990s. I was playing opera on the computer and Prody kept asking "What do you mean by" followed by trying to emulate the singers.
2 people like this
@Daljinder (23236)
• Bangalore, India
28 Apr 16
Accent, pronunciation of words affect the spellings a lot. Siri I tried. I experimented. Pronounce the word differently, the spelling would be something else. Whole thing changed. lol
2 people like this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
29 Apr 16
LOL! Try it again using a monotone voice. It can change more than just spelling if you get excited or angry while using voice recognition software! (grinning at you!)
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
29 Apr 16
@Daljinder LOL! Only if you want to! Otherwise you speak normally without excitement or anger in your voice.
Your voice can still hold a smile in it or sadness in it. Neither of those change your tone or how loud you say something, normally. It s when you changed your volume that the program messes up the most.
1 person likes this
@Daljinder (23236)
• Bangalore, India
29 Apr 16
@DaddyEvil 
Does that mean I have to imitate a bot?
Does that mean I have to imitate a bot?2 people like this
@dpk262006 (58673)
• Delhi, India
29 Apr 16
I have not tried any built-in Speech recognition application in Windows. In fact I was not much aware about it till I went through your post. I think instead of speaking something to the computer, which the computer may not understand completely, it is better to type the thoughts. On a normal keyboard, I could type at a pretty fast speed, therefore, I did not feel the need of using speech option either in mobile or computer.
1 person likes this
@dpk262006 (58673)
• Delhi, India
2 May 16
@DaddyEvil I got your point about speech recognition on phone. I would try it to check how faster it picks up my speech.
1 person likes this
@RasmaSandra (82957)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
28 Apr 16
@owlwings never tried anything like this. All I know I speak to my PC all the time. Only problem it never answers so I never know why it did what it did
2 people like this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
29 Apr 16
Now I am imagining that, too, pgn! Thanks for the funny visual!
1 person likes this
@MarshaMusselman (38869)
• Midland, Michigan
29 Apr 16
I've never used it before and only discovered it after beginning to write here. I wrote a post about using a voice recorder to keep messages to oneself and another member mentioned this on windows which I then found. I should try it out once just to see how difficult it would be and for fun of course.
Cute that you think you should train your app to work with you better.
2 people like this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
29 Apr 16
@owlwings If you are at all interested in this effect, may I suggest you read this dissertation? It is very well thought out and written.
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/dissertations/Babel_dissertation_2009.pdf
2 people like this
@PainsOnSlate (21852)
• Canada
28 Apr 16
I haven't yet but I plan too. My I pad allows me to dictate a text, and I'm pretty sure my Machine will allow it too. I'll have to ask my Apple kids if we have that on the mac. There is no windows on my Mac.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (142853)
• United States
29 Apr 16
Yes, @painsonslate , and no... The iPhone has Siri but they are only attempting to get it set up for Mac right now.
You can run Win10 in parallel with your Mac11 (I think.) and use Cortana from there, but I am not sure it is worth you learning how to use Win10 on your Mac book or Mac air just to use voice recognition software.
I would suggest waiting until Apple perfects Siri for the Mac, personally.
2 people like this
@PainsOnSlate (21852)
• Canada
29 Apr 16
@owlwings I will ask my son and daughter when I see them this weekend. My daughter talks her text messages, I was pretty impressed the first time I saw her do it..
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
28 Apr 16
On Windows? Nope, I type faster than I think, or is it speak? Ha Ha. But I think I should use it on my iPad, since the darned keys are not raised.
2 people like this
@owlwings (43907)
• Cambridge, England
12 May 16
It does that for me, too, sometimes (and 'New Paragraph' ... then 'Delete that' and so on!). It's by no means perfect!
@Carmelanirel2 (8084)
• United States
1 May 16
I thought you meant that when the computer is messing up, you talk to it, whether you are encouraging it or, like me, yelling at it and calling it names..
I don't use the app, don't even know if my computer is able to, but I have used it on my phone and I hate it. It rarely spells out what I say, so I use the swipe feature. Of course swiping also can get screwy and won't spell a word out, so that is when I do use the voice text, or I manually spell it out and if the word is long, that is tedious..
1 person likes this
@cindiowens (5120)
• North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
28 Apr 16
I have tried it, but my house is never quiet enough to actually use it.
1 person likes this
@rina110383 (24492)
•
28 Apr 16
Haven't tried the app but I would love to explore and try it in a while. Looks like I'll enjoy it.
1 person likes this
