Microphone initialization enhancement for speech recognition

A method and arrangement for improved speech recognition in a telephonically challenging speakerphone in-car environment. The method includes receiving a signal from a microphone representative of speech to be recognized, performing detection of a transition in the signal indicative of switch on of the microphone, and, in response to the detection, performing speech recognition on the signal with reduced contribution from an initial portion thereof. The initial portion may be treated as optional speech, the speech recognition may be performed with a predetermined redundant sound, and a user may be requested to speak the predetermined redundant sound when speech recognition has fallen below a predetermined threshold. Thus, recognition may be made possible when otherwise it would not be possible, recognition match scoring will be increased as the low weighting given by deleted initial sounds will be eliminated and therefore confusion of the recognized phrase will be reduced.