Dragon NaturallySpeaking For Dummies, 4th Edition

Chapter 16

Speaking More Clearly

In This Chapter

Deciding what speech issues to worry about

Doing what NaturallySpeaking needs for clarity

Improving enunciation

Differentiating words

Knowing when to run the microphone check again

Deciding on additional training

Say, “I want a Fig Newton and a glass of milk.” Go ahead. Say it the casual way you would in a diner. (Presuming, for the moment, that you like Fig Newtons and milk.)

If you’re like me, you probably said something like, “Eyewanna FigNew’n ‘na glassa milk.” You probably skip the final “t” of “want” and slur “want a” (“wanna”), omit the “to” of “Newton,” skip the “a” and “d” of “and” (“n”), and don’t really pronounce either letter in the word “of.”

North Americans commonly don’t waste time or effort. Often, we ignore short words, initial vowels, and the final consonants of many words. And we unnerstan ‘chother perfeckly, raht? ...