Dragon Naturally Speaking, Session One

Tim writes: I started using Dragon Naturally Speaking today. My first voice training session went something like this:

First I spoke into the microphone to turn the program on.

“Microphone on.”

The program turned on. The little microphone turns green. I played with the on/off function by speaking the off command.


“Microphone off.”


The program turned off. The little microphone turns red. I turned it on again.


“Microphone on.”


I wanted to test if the program picked up my voice properly, so when the microphone was on, I said:


“Today is the day to start something new.”


The program wrote: Today is the day to start something no.


I said “Delete”. It didn’t work.


I said “Back up” The program wrote: backup.


I said “Delete line”. I said this twice and the line disappeared. I tried again.


“Today is the day to start something new.” The program wrote: Today is the day to start something no.


Grrrrowl! It did the same thing! I said “This program is a pain in the A#S.”


The program wrote: program was a pain AMASS.


I tried again. I said a few more things that the program wrote as gibberish. Then I said:


“Janet is the love of my life. She brightens my heart every day.”


The program wrote: Janet is the love of my life. She prisons my heart every day.


Wait! I didn’t say that!


This is pretty much how my session went. Whatever I said, the program wrote something different. Janet was laughing hysterically behind me and the kids wondered what the heck was going on. I did get the program to write the following lines correctly:


My children call me Dick.


I think you work for our government doing healthcare bills.


I am a brain scientist.


I will be using the accuracy tool as soon as our house quiets down enough to let me. (That might be the year 2015.) To end this little narrative of Dragon Naturally Speaking, Session One, I shall share this program’s version of the alphabet:


ABCDEFGHIJKL on the net and all PRSTUVWXYZ.