If you are using Windows 7 (And most likely windows Vista, too) you can use the built-in Speech Recognition feature. This is only available in English, I think.
There are also some non-microsoft programs that enable speech recognition. (You'll be able to find them simply by using any search engine)
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You can't make Microsoft Word speak, however if you go to Control Panel and click Speech, you just type in something you want to make the computer say and click "OK"
Note: Do not press enter after typing in the text box, that just closes the window.
you really can't make a laptop talk but their is something called text to speech where u type something in and it says it
either by playing back prerecorded speech samples or using a technique called a vocoder.