Using an iPhone for Chinese dictation

[mirgcire]

I saw someone use an iPhone to dictate Chinese. I don't know her, but would like to know how she did it. The reason I think it is so cool is that it would be a good way to check your pronunciation. If I could dictate a sentence in Chinese and see the characters written down correctly it would be very satisfying.

I expect it would make mistakes and you would have backspace and correct from time to time. But if it worked just 80% of the time it would still be useful. Actually it might be even better if it wrote pinyin with tone marks, but I am sure that is asking too much.

So ... does anyone know of an app, or a way to configure the phone?

[roddy]

I expect it would make mistakes and you would have backspace and correct from time to time.

At which point the software will adapt to you. You might think you're getting better, it's entirely possible the software is getting cleverer.

There's an app called Dragon Dictation, never used it. Chinese support for Siri is either already available, or in the works, not sure. I think there's a lawsuit floating around to.

[RedCloud]

There's an app called Dragon Dictation, never used it.

I agree with Roddy, a lot of times those speech recognition programs identify the base patterns of speech, and conform to your voice. Dragon dictation is an especially intelligent one...

If you do try it out, let us know what you think about it, in theory it would be an awesome way to practice

[gato]

There's iFlyDictation (讯飞口讯) on the iPhone. The accuracy is not that great, maybe at just about 90%. You can give it a try. It's a free app.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iflydictation/id411611739?mt=8

iFlyDictation

By Hefei iFly Digital Technology Co.,Ltd.

Updated: Jul 10, 2012

Version: 1.0.1048

Size: 2.7 MB

Language: Chinese

Seller: Hefei iFly Digital Technology Co.,Ltd.

[mikelove]

Chinese support in Siri is coming in iOS 6; haven't been able to try it yet since we only have OS 6 installed on some non-Siri devices at the moment, but I believe they licensed their speech technology from Nuance so it should work pretty much the same as Dragon does. I've heard iFlyTek's algorithms are generally better at the moment, though. (would love to talk to them about licensing, actually, but they've ignored all of our attempts to contact them so far)

[mirgcire]

I found a way to make this work on my Samsung Android device.

If you go to the system settings and select "Voice input and output" you can select Chinese simplified.

Then, if you the keyboard open, you can tap on the mic icon and start talking.

I tried some simple sentences (我是美国人, 我想买一件衬衫) and had no problem.

So then I tried 四十四是四十四， without much success (usually it came out 是是是是是是是)

I also tried 李小姐 and I found it always came out 你小姐.

So I tried changing my tongue so only the very tip touched the roof of my mouth ... and it worked.

Some people have said my L sounded like an N, but here I could really tell when I did it correctly.

This feature does not give you any options for correction, so there is no way it can ever "adjust" to my bad habits.

Next I will try downloading the Dragon app and see if I can get it to work on the iPhone

[gato]

If you have the iPhone, try iFlyDictation.

[RedCloud]

This feature does not give you any options for correction, so there is no way it can ever "adjust" to my bad habits.

Nice find, let us know how Dragon works, that one intrigues me the most.

[Adam_CLO]

As mikelove said above, iOS6 (coming out next week) should add Chinese support for SIRI. It's a great way to have a pseudo conversation - and see what SIRI understands. I tried an earlier version and she seemed a bit ruder than the English version, when I tried to insult her.