Getting audio input and processing it?

[Michael Curry]

I've been working on a Morse Code translator, I've made it work so that you can input English and it will translate it to Morse and play the Audio. I now want to add a feature to the program that takes audio input, processes it and then outputs the English.

Are there any specific APIs that I can use to take input from a microphone, is there any way to detect frequencies or amplitudes, as well as find out for how long the wave lasts? If not, are there any implementations of this? Would there be a way to do it?