1. A method of allowing an end-user of a text-to-speech system or a speech recognition system to verbally update a phonetic dictionary, comprising the steps of: recording a verbal pronunciation of at least one word, as spoken by the user; generating a phonetic transcription of the at least one word based on the verbal pronunciation; augmenting the phonetic transcription with syllable stress markers based on the verbal pronunciation; and entering the phonetic transcription into the dictionary.