Large vocabulary speech recognition can automatically turn recognition off
in one or more ways. A user command can turn on recognition that is
automatically turned off after the next end of utterance. A plurality of
buttons can each be associated with a different speech mode and the touch
of a given button can turn on, and then automatically turn off, the given
button's associated speech recognition mode. These selectable modes can
include large vocabulary and alphabetic entry modes, or continuous and
discrete modes. A first user input can start recognition that allows a
sequence of vocabulary words to be recognized and a second user input can
start recognition that turns off after one word has been recognized. A
first user input can start recognition that allows a sequence of
utterances to be recognized and a second user input can start recognition
that allows only a single utterance to be recognized.