How to use the speech module to use speech recognition and text-to-speech in Windows XP or Vista.
The voice recognition system can listen for specific phrases, or it can listen for general dictation.
You can use speech.input() like you would use raw_input(), to wait for spoken input and get it back as a string. Or, you can set up a callback function to be run on a separate thread whenever speech events are heard. Multiple callbacks can be set up for multiple speech recognition events.
Uses the Python speech module: http://pyspeech.googlecode.com .
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Copy to clipboard1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 | import speech
# say() speaks out loud.
speech.say("I am speaking out loud.")
# input() waits for user input. The prompt text is optional.
spoken_text = speech.input("Say something, user!")
print "You said: %s" % spoken_text
# You can limit user input to a set of phrases.
spoken_text = speech.input("Are you there, user?", ["Yes", "No", "Shut up, computer."])
print "You said: %s" % spoken_text
# If you don't want to wait for input, you can use listenfor() to run a callback
# every time a specific phrase is heard. Meanwhile your program can move on to other tasks.
def L1callback(phrase, listener):
print "Heard the phrase: %s" % phrase
# listenfor() returns a Listener object with islistening() and stoplistening() methods.
listener1 = speech.listenfor(["any of", "these will", "match"], L1callback)
# You can listen for multiple things at once, doing different things for each.
def L2callback(phrase, listener):
print "Another phrase: %s" % phrase
listener2 = speech.listenfor(["good morning Michael"], L2callback)
# If you don't have a specific set of phrases in mind, listenforanything() will
# run a callback every time anything is heard that doesn't match another Listener.
def L3callback(phrase, listener):
speech.say(phrase) # repeat it back
if phrase == "stop now please":
# The listener returned by listenfor() and listenforanything()
# is also passed to the callback.
listener.stoplistening()
listener3 = speech.listenforanything(L3callback)
# All callbacks get automatically executed on a single separate thread.
# Meanwhile, you can just do whatever with your program, or sleep.
# As long as your main program is running code, Listeners will keep listening.
import time
while listener3.islistening(): # till "stop now please" is heard
time.sleep(1)
assert speech.islistening() # to at least one thing
print "Dictation is now stopped. listeners 1 and 2 are still going."
listener1.stoplistening()
print "Now only listener 2 is going"
# Listen with listener2 for a while more, then turn it off.
time.sleep(30)
speech.stoplistening() # stop all remaining listeners
assert not speech.islistening()
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There's lower-level example code out there for using speech recognition on Windows, but the speech module improves upon it:
- Very simple interface, with raw_input()-like API for simpler programs
- You don't have to have a loop checking for Windows events
- You can stop listening for events
- You can have multiple listeners doing multiple things
It needs the Microsoft Speech kit and pywin32; the homepage http://pyspeech.google.com has links to installers.
