3. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising the steps of: starting a timer; responsive to detecting a new utterance within a predetermined period, using the large dictionary to recognize the new detected utterance; and responding to the user in the language of the detected utterances.
1. A method for providing information in response to a question in one of a plurality of natural spoken languages, comprising the steps of: recognizing a detected utterance with a speech recognition engine equipped with a plurality of small dictionaries each for respective one of the plurality of languages, each small dictionary including speech data for a selected few common words in the respective language; selecting one of the plurality of languages as the language of the detected utterance based on a number of recognized words for each language from the small dictionaries; recognizing the detected utterance using a large dictionary for the language of the detected utterance; and responding to the user in the selected language.