Abstract: Method and apparatus are disclosed for adapting linguistic speech models in automatic speech recognition systems using speech recognition results obtained during operation of such systems, in which, during the adaptation, a list of N-best recognition result alternatives with N>1 for a speech utterance to be recognized is evaluated. To improve such an on-line adaptation of the linguistic speech models, a combination of a plurality of recognition result alternatives of the list is included in the adaptation.

Abstract: The invention relates to a speech dialogue system (1). To guarantee a maximum reliable identification of meaningful word sub-sequences for a broad spectrum of formulation alternatives with speech inputs, the speech dialogue system comprises a speech understanding unit (4) in which an evaluation of the word sub-sequence is effected with different speech models (8) for identifying a meaningful word sub-sequence from a recognition result produced by a speech recognition unit (3) which was determined for a word sequence fed to the speech dialogue system (1).

Abstract: The invention relates to a dialog system (1) which has a most comfortable and effective dialog structure for a user, comprising processing units for