NoaLingua Answer
When speech recognition will not work in Chrome
Four different causes, and the one that explains a score of a single word
Usually because Chrome has no on-device speech pack for that language on this machine, or has only a short-command model built for two-word instructions. The panel names which of the four causes applies rather than failing silently, and offers the online route where you have allowed it.
Short answer Chrome supplies the speech model, not NoaLingua. The panel names which of the four causes applies.
The detail behind the NoaLingua answer
The four things the panel can tell you
That the speech pack is being fetched, which happens once. That Chrome is still fetching it and to try again in a minute. That no on-device pack exists for this language here, with an offer to turn on online recognition. Or that this browser has no speech recognition at all.
In the last case, say-it-back and scored shadowing are not possible, but shadowing without scoring — the Ctrl+H whole-video mode — still works. It plays the line, stops, gives you a timed gap to repeat it, and moves on. No microphone is involved at all.
Why it sometimes recognises only one word
Chrome ships three sizes of speech model, and for most languages other than English only the smallest exists — a command grammar built for instructions like "next slide". A sentence-repetition exercise scored by a model designed for two words produces a score that means nothing.
The panel now says this before you try, not only after: "short-command model, single words only". And if you have allowed online recognition, it chooses the online route for whole sentences by itself rather than letting you fail into it.
The online route, and exactly what it sends
Try online is available the whole time now, not only after a local attempt has returned nothing — because on a language whose only offline model cannot handle a sentence, waiting to fail first means sitting through a dead end to be offered the thing that works. Clicking it redirects that attempt and does not consume any of your four tries.
What it sends is the audio of your voice, to Chrome's speech service. Nothing else: not the subtitles, not the video, not your words, not your cards. Make online default sits under the button and is the same switch as Settings → Study → Online speech recognition.
The tone that used to lie to you
There was a safety timer so nobody sat staring at "Opening microphone…", and it played the go-ahead tone even when Chrome had reported nothing. On the online route, which needs a network round trip, that meant people started speaking before anything was listening — and lost the beginning of the sentence every time.
The tone now plays only when recording is genuinely confirmed. When it is not, the panel says so instead of playing a signal it cannot honour.
More questions people ask NoaLingua
Can I download the speech pack in advance?
Yes — Settings → Study → Speech on this device has the status and a Download button. It is Chrome's pack, shared with the whole browser, and it does not count against the extension's storage.
Is my voice recorded anywhere?
No. Scores and the words that did not pass are stored so a pattern can be shown over many attempts. Audio is never stored, anywhere, at any point.
What about transcribing a video that has no captions?
That uses the same on-device recognition and is off until you turn it on. It is clearly labelled as a machine guess rather than a subtitle, and it is wrong most often on names.
Where this is documented on NoaLingua
Related NoaLingua answers
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