In order to realize a speech recognition method and speech recognition device that reduce erroneous recognition for words that are not to be recognized and ambient sounds, and improve the recognition capability, characteristic parameters of words to be recognized and characteristic parameters of words that are not to be recognized and ambient sounds are previously entered in a vocabulary template 40, degrees of similarity are obtained in a speech recognition section 30 between characteristic parameters for input words (or sounds) and all the characteristic parameters stored in the vocabulary template 40, and a recognition result is obtained indicating one characteristic parameter from among the characteristic parameters stored in the vocabulary template 40 that is the closest approximation to the characteristic parameter of the input word (or sound).