Then one summer I suddenly noticed that it was painful to lift weightsįor the next six months, while I typed with gritted teeth and assumed things would gradually get better. Very sporty youth, do a fair amount of daily activity and lead a busy Half of my life in front of a computer screen, tapping away at a

My needs were different, however, and I suspect I might not be alone.Īs a forty-something, I recently realised that I’ve spent almost Yes, it helps me translate faster, and more efficiently. English is not my native language and my accent is not a standard one, but I had very few issues getting it to accurately transcribe what I was saying.Dragon Naturally Speaking software has turned my life as a German translator upside down – but not for the reason you may think. Unless you have a very clean accent, you'll spend more time training it to recognize your speech patterns. Dictating a piece of fiction is a very different process than typing it and it will take time at first to get Dragon to understand you. Please bear in mind though that I spent more time training myself to dictate than I did learning how to use the software or to train it.

With practice, it also increases the number of words per hour you can get on paper. It's great if you spend a large number per day typing, as it will reduce the strain you put on your wrists. It's not great with exotic names (so if you write unconventional character names, you will have a few issues unless you use easier variants for dictation), but it can be trained to recognize even those if you take the time to correct it. It does a lot better with non fiction than with fiction at first. My preferred method of working with it is to record myself and then use Dragon to transcribe my dictation. You have to train the software and be patient with it and yourself at first. It has a learning curve that's not something to ignore. When used consistently, it provides for larger numbers of words per hour than I could ever type and it gives my wrists a break. I have been using Dragon as an alternative to typing my novels.

Used dragon naturally speaking software