1. A method of recognizing speech comprising the following steps: a first step of calculating P (P: a positive integer of 2 or more) first characteristic parameters from an input speech at respective points in time; a second step of performing a comparative operation between said first characteristic parameters calculated at said first step and P first characteristic parameters of n (n: a positive integer of 1 or more, where P&gt;n) specific speech patterns which have a high separability, at respective points in time to obtain n second characteristic parameters, each representing the distance or correlation between the first characteristic parameters of the input speech signal and each of the specific speech patterns; and a third step of detecting coincidence between said second characteristic parameters obtained at said second step and n second characteristic parameters obtained in advance by the comparison between P first characteristic parameters of a standard speech and said first characteristic parameters of said specific speech patterns, thereby effecting the recognition of the input speech.