Dragon Naturally Speaking v.10

[mckitterick]

To those of you who use and like this software: How many hours does it take to make it even partially useful? Right now, I'm experiencing these issues:

• It mis-recognizes MOST words I speak.


• It takes several seconds for the text to appear after I speak (too little memory or processor on my laptop?).


• It refuses to recognize swear-words, even after training.


• Heck, it seems incapable of learning ANY word I try to teach it, no matter how many times I type and read it in the "learn word" feature.

This experience is worse than the one I had with Word 2000 when it first came out with that voice-recognition feature. I have the uneasy feeling that I'll have to spend hundreds of hours teaching this damned software... rather than writing.

Your experience? Is it just my way of speaking that's the issue? Am I forever screwed?

Best,
Chris

PS: I might have a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking v.10 for sale, cheap! Only $45. I'm told that it's AWESOME software.

Comments

[siro-gravity.livejournal.com]

LOL!!! your PS is super funny!!!
personally, i wouldn't pay for anything that didn't recognize my cussing, either. :)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

"Bok bok bok!" it typed as I tried over and over to get it to recognize my favorite cuss-word.

[siro-gravity.livejournal.com]

LOL!!

[royal-spice.livejournal.com]

Bok bok Easter Bunny!!

--

Really, you shouldn't say it three times...otherwise baby Jesus gets his wings.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

I have never personally used it. However, during my grad school internship, I worked for a while with a young woman who'd been in a car accident and was planning to go to college. The rehab center where I did the internship was working with her on the preparation for same, which included about four hours a day for two or three months getting Dragon to learn her Eastern Kentucky accent. (Not think "Y'all" was "yawl," etc.) That was about 12 years ago, so was a much earlier version. I do know someone who uses a much more current version, and has for some time. It still does interesting things to what he says. It will eventually adjust to your speech patterns, but it takes time. Fortunately, your accent is pretty much American Default, which will help.

[stuology.livejournal.com]

I know there is something funny on the interwebz related to this topic. If I wasn't so tired, I would find it.

[chernobylred.livejournal.com]

Onion article, here.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

[royal-spice.livejournal.com]

Sorry it's not working well for you--I've known people who loved it and people who hated it, but my perception was that the issues were largely user dependent (tech saavy vs not, thick accents, patience, etc).

[queza7.livejournal.com]

I have a copy and I find it highly helpful. Maybe a better microphone would help? My built-in one (and the crappy headset packaged with the software) makes the software garble my words, but a high-quality headset ryltar loaned me solved almost all my word-garbling problems.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Good idea; the one that came with the software is also really uncomfortable.

[professormass.livejournal.com]

It takes training and patience, and yes, a good microphone helps. It took me about a month of constant use to train my copy of Dragon, and that was six years ago.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

...after that first month, you haven't had constant errors?

[professormass.livejournal.com]

I did have constant errors -- but they were about 1 in 50 words. That never went away.

[margaretq.livejournal.com]

If it helps, my father bought a version recently which had additional medical lexicons to help with dictations. His laptop met a strange accident a week later which mutilated it. I heard it was not gently disposed of...

[robinbailey.livejournal.com]

Ack! @$$^@#$#$#@@@!!! Dragon Naturally Speaking? If I was writing grocery lists for a living I might try it again. But never again for fiction. Worse than the error rate was the way it would sometimes confuse commands. I loaded it up and tried to use it for a period of time during an illness once. I wound up losing half a chapter when I spoke the word "delete" or maybe it was "erase" or something like that at an untimely moment. Then I watched as the cursor back-tracked and erased the entire file.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Argh! That's scary. On the plus side, my computer's resources are low enough that the program didn't activate voice commands ;-)

Perhaps I won't spend a bunch of time learning it....

[skaldic.livejournal.com]

I just got a copy and have yet to install it (too many things going on). However, before you drop it because of the largely negative comments here, you might take a look at my post of a couple of weeks ago, when I was contemplating getting it. Different outlook entirely, plus what might be a solution to at least one issue. It's here. If you want, I can also forward you the email that zaan sent me about her experiences with it.

Not saying that it's the second coming or anything (especially since I've yet to use it), but once you've been using it awhile, it may not be as bad an experience as some of the people above have had.