Dictating my blogs

In an effort to become more modern, I have decided to test my computers speech recognition software to write my blogs. This input method also saves my wrists from having to type at an awkward angle while sitting at the dinner table; the height of the dinner table is actually about 2.5 inches too high for the perfect typing position for my height and stature. This means that while I do enjoyable blogging, it is actually not as enjoyable to do here as it would be at a custom-sized desk. I am hoping that this speech recognition software will allow me to write my blogs more efficiently.

This is the first of my blogs that I am attempting to write in its entirety using speech recognition software. About 11 years ago, I actually paid hard earned money for some cutting edge speech recognition software. I installed it onto my computer and played with it for about three days. That was about the limit that my patience could take. 11 years ago, speech recognition software was slow, inaccurate, inconsistent and frustrating to use. Today, after a quick 20 minute tutorial, I am dictating my first full length blog article. I must confess, that this modern day version of speech recognition software is much more accurate and much easier to use then that first attempts almost 11 years ago. I find that I still have to pause at regular, frequent, short intervals, but it is so much closer to the speed of natural speech than my previous attempt.

This software is by no means perfect. However, it does save me from doing a lot of typing. The choppy pace of dictating my sentences is proving a little more distracting than I had originally anticipated. While it is really cool to see speech appear almost instantaneously on screen after I have said it, the regular pauses disrupt the pattern of my natural thought processes. After almost every complex sentence, I find that I have to go back and correct minor sub phrases, clauses, and individual words. This constant checking, rechecking, rephrasing, correcting, and verifying is very taxing on the throat and mouth. If the long hot Japanese days weren't enough to make one feel 'darui' then the constant repetition definitely seals the deal.

So far, it has taken me nearly 20 minutes to dictate the preceding three paragraphs. I have been correcting the sentences as I dictate. After this blogs post is finished, I will have to proofread the entire article again. At the end of the day, I really don't believe that dictating my blogs using this speech recognition software is any faster than using the good old fashioned keyboard method to type in my blogs. However, being able to tell people that I actually dictate my blogs does actually sound that much cooler and so 'today'. So, for all its drawbacks, repetitiveness, throat drying, and extremely slow pace, dictating my future blogs maybe the way to go. I guess you really can't fight the future.

I wonder how it does with Japanese words thrown in?