Institute of Phonetic Sciences,

This is the slightly adapted English version of my farewell lecture that I presented in Dutch on June 3rd, 2005 when I formally retired from the University of Amsterdam. It gives a good overview of the cooperative work I did between 1982 and 2005 with my colleague staff members, post-docs and Ph.D. students. Samenspraak, the first word in my title, is a Dutch word implying both speaking as well as working together. The emphasis in this contribution is on acquiring phonetic knowledge via phonetics research, via speech databases, as well as in studying phonetics as a student, in order to apply and implement that knowledge in efficient speech communication, in basic research and in specific applications, as well as to improve efficient training in phonetics. This farewell lecture on June 3rd, 2005 was presented in Dutch in the Aula of the University of Amsterdam for a big audience consisting of representatives from various organizations, colleague professors and many other colleagues, as well as students, family and friends. Amongst the guests were the chairman of the Board of the University of Amsterdam, the dean of the Faculty of Humanities (who chaired the session), as well as the president and several (former) Board members of the International Speech Communication Association ISCA. After the lecture dr. Sijbolt Noorda, the chairman of the Board of the University of Amsterdam, handed over the honorary medal for special services to the university (‘toegekend wegens bijzondere verdiensten voor de universiteit’). Later that day Cecilia Odé and Rob van Son, as guest editors, symbolically presented a special issue of the international journal Speech Communication (Odé & van Son, 2005), that was actually published in September 2005 as volume 47, issues 1-2, containing 17 reviewed papers by Dutch and international colleagues and friends.