The invention provides a method and device for recognizing an utterance. The method includes transmitting context data associated with a first device to a second device. A first speech recognition model is received from the second device. The first speech recognition model is a subset of a second speech recognition model present at the second device. The first speech recognition model is based on the context data. It is determined whether the utterance can be recognized at the first device based on the first speech recognition model. If the utterance cannot be recognized at the first device, then at least a portion of the utterance is sent to the second device. If the utterance can be recognized at the first device, then an action associated with the recognized utterance is performed.