"Will You Marry Me" and other handy phrases in steno (stenograph machine)

Occasionally I'll write a post based on the search terms that brought someone to my blog. This one, "Will you marry me in stenograph," is too sweet not to!  Apparently some thoughtful person wants to propose to their significant other in steno (using the language of the stenograph machine). I hope whoever it is searches those terms again and finds the information they need. So here's that phrase and a few other ones that might be useful for people that want to send personal messages, decorate cakes, or make homemade holiday or other greeting cards for the stenographers, court reporters, CART providers, and captioners in their lives. PS - The capital letters are standard and easier to read.

Will you marry me?   HR- KWROU PHAR/REU PHE STPH-
I love you    EU HR*UF KWROU
Happy birthday   HAP/PEU B*EURT/DAEU
Good luck   TKPWAOD HRUBG
Happy anniversary   HAP/PEU APB/SRERS/REU
Get well soon   TKPWET WEL SAOPB
Merry Christmas   PHER/REU KR*EUS/PHAS
Happy New Year HAP/PEU TPHU KWRAOER
Thank you   THA*PBG KWROU

! (exclamation point)   STKPWHR-FPLT
? (question mark)   STPH-

. (period)   -FPLT

Finger Twisters/Silly Sentences

When I was a kid, my grandma would watch me during the day when my mom was at work. The two of us would read, do activities, play games etc. (Note to self:  Do not play Aggravation with young children. It may teach them to be a poor loser for the rest of their life.) One of my favorite books to read was my illustrated tongue twister book. We would laugh and laugh at each other's attempts at saying "rubber baby buggy bumpers," or "she sells seashells by the seashore." My inner court reporting student thanks you for that experience, Grandma.

I think the key to these is the similarities and differences between the words, which make the brain really work at interpreting what you heard or read. It's also excellent for practicing soundalikes and conflict differentiation. I'm incorporating this type of thing into today's steno practice session. Some are actual tongue twisters found on the web, and a few are mine, specially written for finger positions that give me trouble. Try writing these on your steno machine several times.

Click here for the audio file

Freshly fried flying fish.


How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
and chuck as much as a woodchuck would
if a woodchuck could chuck wood.


The epitome of femininity.


Pop the cork. I'm home from work.


Should the child or could the child shine their thick leather shoes?


A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.


Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?


Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.


Many an anemone sees an enemy anemone.(I use TPHAOEPL for enemy.)


They could choose to share their chocolate cashews.

Want more tongue twister fun? Go here for an A-to-Z list or go here and follow the links for longer tongue twister poems.

Hah! They have rude/dirty tongue twisters here. Not offensive by themselves, but if you get going too fast out might pop a cuss word. A good way to check if your swears are well enough "hidden in your CAT dictionary" to not come out in realtime translation!

On a personal note, (like the above childhood memories weren't enough, haha) I passed my second 200 wpm Q&A on the last testing opportunity of the season. I'm excited, to say the least. It also means that I reached goal #4 of the short-term goals I set back in August, which you can read here. So on that note, why don't you all set a short term steno goal to reach by the end of break and some for the upcoming semester. Your future inner court reporter thanks you too. :)

Q&A Phrases Free Audio Drills

Edit: These links no longer work. Sometimes podcasts get deactivated, so I'll check back in the future to see if they get put back up. In the meantime, don't use these links. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Using phrases in Q&A dictation can be very beneficial to court reporting and steno students. Phrases can mean the difference between keeping up with the dictation and losing it altogether, so do yourself a favor and brush up on these free practice drills of Q & A phrases.

First off, here is a list of Q&A phrases and popular Q&A phrases before you get started on these free audio drills in case you're missing some phrases.

Free Q&A Audio Drills

QA endurance and phrases Great drill to practice accident phrases and deposition phrases!

Drills Q&A Phrases Another good one to drill Q&A phrases

Drill Phrases and Finger Twisters Q&A phrases and consonant combinations.

High Freq Phrases Just what it says, high frequency phrases.

Drill Phrases More phrases to practice!

Drill Phrases 2 Still more phrases to practice.

If there are any you still can't find a phrase for, just ask in the comment section, and I'll do my best to share mine and/or find one for you. Let me know if any are repeats, please.

Little and Common Word Drills

For a court reporting, CART, or captioning student, sometimes the little words are what get us down and are so often misheard or written incorrectly. How to remedy that? Easy. Drill the hell out of them! Without further ado, here is a compilation of free little word drills found on the internet that are perfect for steno students to practice ad nauseum.

Drill HFWS Smaller common words drill.

Drill of, or, over Those always seem to come out as "oaf" or some other incorrect form for me. Second part deals with common words and inflected endings.

Drill in the  Sentence drills read quickly.  "Her pals are in the welding shop." "Is the top part of her skull hard or soft?"

Drills little words  Focuses on pronouns and prepositions

Drill TRT 17 little words Words and then sentences from TRT 17

Drills Little Words Words, fast sentences (drop as soon as she starts the next sentence!), ends with states.

There. That should keep you busy for a while. I'll do this again soon. There's so many good little word drills out there. :) Happy practicing, steno people!

NCRA 180 #2 and The Joys of Camping

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

Today's steno practice diary is from the same NCRA speed tape but is the second selection of 180 wpm literary material. This one is about camping, which happens to be both one of my favorite and least favorite pastimes.

While we're on the subject, I went camping once this past summer at my grandparents' pine tree farm with my boyfriend and another couple, which would have been cool if my boyfriend and my friend weren't butting heads all weekend. I'm sure my anxiety level was upped by the fact that they were shooting our anti-bear rifle at an archery target, and me thinking that the neighbors would call the cops for fear we were killing somebody out there.

We only got stuck in the ditch once and had to be winched out by my wonderful cousin who lives down the road from there. There was a scary moment there where the Impala sat practically straight up and down, not unlike how the Titanic did just before it slipped below the surface. Only by the grace of God, I presume, the car landed gently on all four tires, safe and sound. Except for the broken tie-rod, that is, but the point is that we made it home safely.

Time: A hour and a half. (Hey, it's Saturday, and I had equipment issues.)
Pages: 45

Hesitation words: scratching SKRAFPG, camp KAFRP, Mt. M*T, agitation APBLG/TAEUGS, foundation, TPOUPBGS, gratifying TKPWRAT/TPAOEU/-G, municipality PHAOUPT, discovered STKO*FRD, accompanied AEU/KPAEPBD

Dictionary entries: sheets SHAOETS, packs, PABGZ, simply SPHRE, gather TKPWA*RT, triggers TREURGZ, hikers HAOEUK/ERZ, climbers KHRAOEUPL/ERZ

Practice Diary 180 Literary

This is my first attempt at a post like this, a concept borrowed from fellow blogger Harley at stenorific.com, which you should check out after you read this. There's an awesome list of Q&A extensions on there as the top post right now.

So today I've been working on an old NCRA 225 wpm tape, and first up is a 180 literary piece about the paper industry. I use PAIP for paper and STREU for industry. Eclipse mistakenly translated "paper industry" as "papistry," which is apparently a derogatory term used to describe Roman Catholics. No offense intended, anybody. Just might want to make a dictionary entry for "paper industry" to avoid alienating anybody while doing realtime in the future.

Time spent: 2+ hrs
Page count: 50
Speed levels: 70% to 100% of original speed

Hesitation (HEGS) words: KPWRAO*UFG improving, SPWRAOEFG increasing, KARB/RAEURT carburetor, TKRUPT disrupt, PROPT prospect, P*EFRPT perspective, PW*EU/KWRO/PHASZ biomass, O*UT/PUT output, TKPWAPBLZ gallons, SKPAPBGS expansion, HUPS hundred percent.

Dictionary Entries: HA*FRBS harvest, SPWEG/RAEUTD integrated, SPWEG/RAEUGS integration, SPWEG/RA*EUFT integrative, SHA*EUFGZ shavings, KW*EUFT equivalent, O*UBL obviously, A*UNL annually, SUL/FAOEUT sulfite, RE/NAOUBL renewable, PUL/-PG pulping, LEURZ liquors.

Soundalikes: WA*ES/WA*EUS waste/waist, TON/TUN ton/tun, ROL/ROEL roll/role

Mastered? Need to revisit.