How to use audio input?

daal

探花
Dumb question time: How do you use audio input? I recall that it worked fine in the past, but now when I try to use it, a google window pops up. After clicking the microphone symbol and recording, instead of sending the input to pleco, it just sits there and the only option I see is to click the microphone symbol which just closes it. What am I missing? I'm using android 9.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That's news to us - if you wait longer does it stop recording? Are you maybe somewhere with a lot of background noise where it can't detect the recording has stopped? Does Google's search app have permission to use the microphone?
 

daal

探花
It is a quiet room. Google just waits. If I let it wait longer, Google complains that it doesn't understand what I am saying. I tried turning off the permission for google to use the microphone, but when I click the mic symbol in Pleco, a pop up appears asking: "allow Google to record audio?"
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Hmm... and does voice input work correctly in the separate Google app? Or in any other apps?

To be honest, this isn't something we have a lot of control over - we hand the request off to Google and they hand back text - so I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about this directly on our end.
 

daal

探花
I have a workaround which is to set the dictionary to keyboard input and then use the voice input from gboard, so I don't have a problem anymore, but Pleco's voice input is still not working on my phone running android 9. Other google voice input services such as the google translate app work fine and accept voice input in several languages, but when I use Pleco's microphone input, it malfunctions. What it is doing today is that first it transcribes my speech onto its screen, but doesn't send it to Pleco. Then an error pops up saying that it didn't catch what I said, although it did...
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Hmm, definitely working fine here on my Android 9 phone. What's the exact brand/model? And which specific firmware version? Are you using the latest versions of all of Google's built-in apps?
 

alike

Member
Just to report on this that I get similar behavior (Pleco 3.2.68, MIUI 10.3.4, Redmi 6 Pro), although the English audio input is fine, so it's only the Mandarin and Cantonese that often hangs for no apparent reason. Probably a Google issue though.
 

daal

探花
Hmm. My phone is also a Xiaomi - the M1, which is part of the android one program which means latest version of pure android 9. Not sure what the firmware version is.
 
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daal

探花
I just discovered that this feature is also broken (for me) on another dictionary app, Morfix, which translates Hebrew to and from English. There is no problem when I say something in English, but when I say something in Hebrew, it is not sent to the app, just like with Pleco.
If however, I set Pleco's voice recognition to English, it works perfectly.
 
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mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Maybe it has offline recognition data for English but not for other languages? (not sure how you force it to download other languages' data though)
 

daal

探花
I have downloaded offline speech recognition for Chinese as well, so I don't think that is the problem. It seems that google has a number of different ways to recognize speech.

When I have the English keyboard enabled and I click the mic symbol at the top right of the keyboard, the top bar next to the microphone displays "speak now" and when I do, my words, for example right here, are instantly typed. This works the same way and equally well if I have the German, Russian or Hebrew keyboard enabled and I am speaking in German, Russian or Hebrew.

With Chinese however, something different happens. When I click the mic symbol, a window opens with a mic in a green circle at the center. To the left is a settings wheel which leads to the voice input section of my phone's settings. At the top a message is briefly displayed: "try saying something," which then changes to: "tap to speak." When I then speak in Chinese, the text is also quickly typed. However, this window, the one with the green circle, is different from the window that opens when I click the mic symbol in Pleco. When I click this, a window opens with the mic symbol in a blue circle. There is no settings wheel, and the text at the top says: "speak a word to look it up." At the bottom it says"普通话(中国大陆)," which btw., is also what I see when I look at the offline speech recognition section of my phone's settings. When I speak into this mic, my speech appears typed in the window, but it is not entered into Pleco's input box.

As I mentioned previously, my phone is a xiaomi A1, which is updated to the latest version of plain android 9, no MIUI.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Hmm, yeah, would be quite Google-like to have two or three entirely different voice recognition systems bundled into the same app depending on which language you're using.
 
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