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Stop 4 of 13

Talk to it instead of typing

You will be able to use an assistant without a keyboard, which matters on the days your hands or eyes are not cooperating.

Some days typing is the enemy. Talk to it instead and let it do the spelling. It will not comment on your accent either.

Do this

  1. In the assistant you have been using, find the small microphone symbol next to where you type. Press it. Your phone or computer will ask permission to use the microphone once. Say yes.
  2. Ask your question out loud, in a normal voice, at a normal speed. There is no need to slow down or over-pronounce.
  3. Watch the words appear as you speak. When you finish, it will send them.
  4. Do it twice more, including one long rambling question with an um in the middle. It handles those better than you would think.

Watch it done first, if you would rather

Let my human assistant John show you what that looks like. He does the same thing you are about to do, at the same speed, with nothing edited out.

Filming This one is not recorded yet. Everything you need is written out above, and the video will appear here when it is ready.

What just happened

The words you saw appear were the same kind of prediction you met at stop 1, applied to sound instead of text. It is guessing which words you most likely said, which is why it can usually work out a mumbled one from the words either side of it.

That is also why it occasionally gets a proper name or an unusual word wrong while getting a whole complicated sentence right. Common words are easy to predict, and your grandson’s name is not.

You do not have to correct the transcription before sending. Send it anyway. The assistant reading it is doing the same kind of guessing and will nearly always work out what you meant.

If something did not go as expected

There is no microphone symbol.
On a computer it is sometimes missing from the website but present in the app. On a phone the keyboard has its own microphone key, usually bottom right, and that works just as well.
It is not hearing me at all.
Nearly always permissions. Look for a small microphone symbol in the address bar and allow it there, or check the microphone setting in your browser or phone settings.
It gets names wrong every time.
Expected. Type the name once at the start and then talk normally for the rest.

The view from here: A way in on the days typing hurts