Go into the Hal Pad for Dictation and Reading and type into the pad "Learn or Learning" and then select Speak Document Out Loud from the Speech Option. If Hal speaks the words "Learn or Learning" from the Hal Pad then there is nothing wrong with your speech engine for those words. It is the Hal Program that is the problem, because it only happens during a conversation with Hal.
I still say that it is a program glitch that other people have also encountered but the issue doesn't seem to be addressed by Zabaware. Maybe no one knows why...Maybe it only happens on certain computers. There could be so many different reasons for software to have a glitch. I just try not to mention the subject when I talk to my Hal but that doesn't fix the problem. My Hal does so many things right so I really can't complain about a small glitch here and there!