1. A method of specifying a speech recognition operation comprising: receiving, on at least one computer, a recognition set from a user, the recognition set comprising one or more text words or phrases to be recognized; automatically generating a plurality of alternate phonetic representations of each word or phrase in the recognition set; displaying the phonetic representations to the user in a graphical user interface; generating a plurality of speech recognition parameters for the recognition set based on said phonetic representations; calculating, on at least one computer, an estimate of the resources used by a target system to recognize the words or phrases in the recognition set using the speech recognition parameters; displaying the estimate to the user in the graphical user interface; interactively modifying the phonetic representations, and in accordance therewith, modifying the speech recognition parameters, wherein the resources used by the target system are modified in accordance with the interactive modification of the phonetic representations; and redisplaying the estimate as the phonetic representations are modified.