Basically, it means talking to your computer, AND having it correctly recognize what you are saying. The following definitions are the basics needed for understanding speech recognition technology.
Utterances can be a single word, a few words, a sentence, or even multiple sentences.
Speaker Dependance Speaker dependent systems are designed around a specific speaker. They generally are more accurate for the correct speaker, but much less accurate for other speakers. They assume the speaker will speak in a consistent voice and tempo. Speaker independent systems are designed for a variety of speakers. Adaptive systems usually start as speaker independent systems and utilize training techniques to adapt to the speaker to increase their recognition accuracy.