PURPOSE: To execute word recognition without preparing standard patterns of unnecessary words for a voice segment which includes the unnecessary words by obtaining the degree of similarity against a sound section only and using the standard template, which makes the degree of similarity a minimum, as word recognition result.

CONSTITUTION: Let the point, at which a change takes place from a silence section to a sound section in voice segment, be a starting point stq (q=1, 2...) and let the point, at which a sound section changes to a silence section, be an ending point edr (r=1, 2...). Employing the DP matching equation shown, the degree of similarity SS of the voice segment and the standard template between the point stq and the point edr is obtained. Note that in the equation, Sn (i, j) represents the DP matching score between a first frame of the inputted voice and a j-th frame of a n-th standard pattern, d (Ai, Bnj) signifies the segment distance between the first frame of the inputted voice and the j-th frame of the n-th standard pattern and a min() represents a minimum value among three scores. The word having the standard template, which makes the degree of similarity SS a minimum, is mad as the word recognition result of the voice segment.