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I'm playing with Google Voice Actions. The idea is great, but I'm having trouble with Google Voice Actions not recognizing some of my words. The mistakes are minor, but are bad enough that the application returns bad results half the time.

Some examples: * The words "Bee Canyon" is interpreted to be "East Canyon". * "Road" is interpreted as "route"

I am using a Samsung Intercept M910.

I speak American English, with a typical American (Californian) accent. I'm sitting in a quiet room with little background noise.

Is there a way to 'train' Google Voice Actions so that it will understand my voice better?

Flow
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Stefan Lasiewski
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3 Answers3

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You could try enabling the "Personalized Recognition" option in the Voice Search settings. This option basically causes Voice Search to store words and phrases that you use on your Google account, and gradually build up a voice library of your speech patterns. You can read the original announcement for it on the Google Mobile blog.

I believe this feature is only available in the US on Android 2.2 or later, but it's possible there may be other restrictions as well.

eldarerathis
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  • Thanks for the response. My phone does not have a settings option for "Voice Search", but it does have something similar called "Voice Input & Output", and that option does not have an option called "Personalized Recognition"input & output"). I read the the original announcement, and I don't have anything on my Dashboard called "Speech". I am running on Android 2.2. – Stefan Lasiewski Oct 05 '11 at 21:30
  • The setting won't be in your phone's settings menu, it will be in the Voice Search settings. Bring up the Voice Search dialog (launch the app or hold your search key or however you usually do it) and then press your hard Menu button to get to the app settings. – eldarerathis Oct 06 '11 at 15:36
  • Thanks for the pointer, unfortunately I do not see an option for "Personalized recognition" (Or "Google Account dashboard"). I only have "Language", "SafeSearch", "Block Offensive Words" and "Show hints", but those are my only options. Maybe this application is different for my phone. – Stefan Lasiewski Oct 06 '11 at 18:24
  • @Stefan: That's possible. You could check the Market for "Voice Search" and see if it lets you install/update from there, but otherwise there might be some reason the option is simply not available for you (again, I know there's certain restrictions, but I don't know the full extent, unfortunately). – eldarerathis Oct 07 '11 at 13:41
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    @Stefan Go to the Market and search for "Voice Actions" in Apps. Once you download the update, Personalized Recognition will appear in your settings. – joe bloe Oct 26 '11 at 14:29
  • @Joe: Thanks for the pointer. That worked! There is an update in the Android Market, but Market never told me about this update before. – Stefan Lasiewski Oct 26 '11 at 21:28
  • I finally got this "Personalized Recognition" working, thanks to @joe's instructions. But phrases like "Bee Canyon" are still being misinterpreted. However, it might take time for "Personalized Recognition" to recognize me. I'll try this feature out for another week and will report back. – Stefan Lasiewski Oct 26 '11 at 22:10
  • The sad thing is I've be using personalized recommendations and other settings since day one and under "Speech" section from https://www.google.com/dashboard I only have just over 300 personalized recognition objects and the most recent was captured "Most recent: on Dec 15, 2011" WTF?!. Also, unfortunately, it used to properly handle words like Ubuntu and Linux!!! Now, with Android 4.1 sick ass Google Now and killer speech recognition .. it does not recognize a lot of my techy words and speak. DAMN WE NEED SOME TRAINING SOFTWARE. – TryTryAgain Jul 07 '12 at 04:02
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The voice recognition also seems to do a better job with longer phrases and sentences (as there is additional context). It often does a better job for me if I add extra words (e.g., when searching for a nearby street or service, add the city and the state).

P.T.
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Look up the "voice search" app, tap on the three horizontal dots at the bottom right of the screen. Tap on settings> voice history > Enable it.

user303978
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