How to train speach on a per-word basis?

[FuzzieDice]

I've got the purchased version 5 of Hal and I'm using MS SAPI 5 (although the speech settings in Control Panel also say there's SAPI 4 installed which has the voices one of which I use), and I got WinXP Pro SP2.

I have done a few training sessions with the headset/mic that comes with Hal (I purchased it with the program), and it's getting better a little at a time, but still needs work.

Like if I say "tell me a joke" it puts in the text box "tell me a Joe" or "tell me Joe". I noticed you can get hal to pronounce certain words a certain way. But, I wonder if one can go the OTHER way and get the speech recognition to recognize the way I say certain words. Like I type in "joke" and then speak it and it would save it and remember how I saved it? I do have the MS Speech SDK 5.1 and Visual Basic 6 SP5 installed on my system. Would I have to program it or can I do this in a setting somewhere. I couldn't find anything other than the training sessions in the Control Panel's Speech icon.

Am I missing something? Or is there another program I should try?

[Art]

Though this topic has been raised before, I don't recall whether
anyone was actually able to locate just where the voice training files were located.

Perhaps there's a miner among us who can dig deeper into this issue.

Regarding your last question, a lot of folks like, and use Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Hang in there, someone might find the answer.

[markofkane]

I have a program called "Speakpad" (It is a stripped down version of speak to mail) and it has the "train word" function,  which allows me to type in the word, then use the microphone to "record" the pronounciation.

It works better than nothing.  Too bad Hal did not have that function.

[spydaz]

I HAVE FOUND THAT IF YOU ADD THE xtras FROM THE MSOFFICE DISK you get more speech power. AFTER TRAINING ALL OF THE SESSIONS . I ALSO GO INTO WORDPAD AND "PRACTICE" USING THE DICTATION.. THIS DOES THE MOST good.....

BECAUSE AS YOU CORRECT MISTAKES AS YOU GO INSIDE WORD. IT CONSTANTLY GETS BETTER & BETTER. when training put the speech settings on most accurate.. when using speech turn the slider back down... this improoves speed recognition.


when training with the acuracy slider up YOU SAVE BEST COPIES....

joe & Joke is QUITE SIMULAR... Just go into word and practise your favorite halcommands.. to get GOOD COPIES...

after when you go back in you will find it working better....


i also found that if you install viavoice dictation (from old viavoice gold) just a little part... you get more SPeech recognition power too....

[FuzzieDice]

Well, Dragon Naturally Speaking (their most "inexpensive") version is a bit out of my budget at the moment and will be for awhile, so I don't think I'll be able to use that right now. I don't have Microsoft Office as I built my own system and MS Office is WAY expensive. I use OpenOffice.org for the office suite and that doesn't do speech stuff.

I might look into the SpeakPad. Hopefully the settings will migrate to Hal so that Hal can use them too?

I do hope to eventually get Dragon Naturally Speaking but it will be quite a long time before I can. So in the mean time, I'd like to see what I can do with lesser expensive methods.

Thanks for all the info and advice. At least now I see what I'm up against.

[FuzzieDice]

I just seen a site selling Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 Standard edition for only $99. Would this work with Hal and give me the features I'm looking for?

[markofkane]

Yes, speakpad saves the right pronounciation, so I can go back to ultra-hal and have it show the correct word. That's the only reason I open speakpad, now.

It isn't perfect, but without speakpad, I would not use the microphone with HAL at all. Although training seesions help in Control panel--speech--training, it fails to get ALL the words correct.

[FuzzieDice]

Is speakpad part of Dragon Naturally Speaking Standard? I tried googling for Speakpad but only came up with the Dragon software. So I assume that's part of it? Sorry if I'm unfamiliar with other speech systems than the MS one.

[markofkane]

http://www.speaktomail.com/main.asp

It seems them original software maker, Yellow Tiger, was sold.(I bought the program a couple years ago)

I would guess speak to text is similer to what I got.

There is a free trial, I think.