1. A method for selectively interacting with a server to build a local dictation database for speech recognition at a device, the method comprising: receiving, at a computing device associated with a user, a first audio sample; determining, at the computing device, that the first audio sample does not match any of one or more audio samples stored in a local dictation database of the computing device; transmitting the first audio sample to a remote server for detection of one or more words indicated by the first audio sample; receiving data identifying the one or more words from the remote server; and updating the local dictation database to store the first audio sample in association with the one or more words.