How do you train Dragon NaturallySpeaking to understand your voice?

The training you will use most often with Dragon NaturallySpeaking happens in ordinary use. You correct each mistake as it happens, and you teach Dragon the words it keeps getting wrong. Formal training is the fallback for errors that keep coming back. Nuance's help treats it that way: it says to consider training when Dragon consistently misrecognizes words or phrases.

Teach Dragon the words it keeps missing

Start with vocabulary. Nuance's help for Dragon for PC, version 15, says that to add a word or phrase, you specify the word and its spoken form, and you can optionally train Dragon on its pronunciation ¹. This list is your custom vocabulary. It sits in your user profile, and the profile stores your custom words along with the type of microphone you use ².

Yale's dyslexia resource gives a practical rule for a mishearing that is Dragon's fault, not yours. It advises repeating the word so the software learns the correct pronunciation ³. Yale's tip covers one product and is not an independent test, so treat it as a method rather than Nuance's official procedure.

Use formal training when the same errors persist

Nuance's correction help says that if Dragon consistently misrecognizes words or phrases, you should consider training Dragon ⁴. That page is from the Dragon 15 help, so the wording may differ in your version. The rule is still useful: a mistake you see once is a correction, and a mistake that returns every session is a training job.

What Nuance's training material covers

The Get trained page in the Dragon Professional 16 help offers short interactive training modules on key aspects of Dragon ⁵. The modules cover the microphone, the DragonBar, corrections, punctuation, spelling and transcribing recordings. The page does not say whether the modules are videos. We did not find Nuance training videos in the pages we could open, so do not count on them.

The only voice training walkthrough we could open is for the Mac. Nuance's help for Dragon for Mac 6 says Voice Training "helps Dragon learn how you speak", and it asks you to read a story aloud ⁶. The steps on Windows may differ, so check the help inside your installed copy before you follow them.

Keep a separate profile for each setting

Training is tied to a profile, so treat a profile as one setup. Nuance says you can have only one Dragon user profile for each region ⁷. If you dictate in a different room with a different microphone, the profile trained in the first place may not suit the second. The parent guide explains how to create a profile.

A practical routine for the first sessions

1. Dictate in full sentences rather than single words.
2. Correct each error as soon as it appears, using the correction commands. Nuance's Dragon 15 correction help names "Correct That" for the last text you dictated ⁸.
3. Add each name or term that Dragon misses to your vocabulary, with its spoken form.
4. If the same errors keep returning, run the training modules, then train Dragon as described above.
5. If the errors seem to come from the sound rather than the words, check the microphone before you train anything. The microphone question covers those checks.

For the voice commands you will use while correcting, see Dragon NaturallySpeaking commands. For the full setup, read the parent guide to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and the wider overview of dictation software.