Problem getting the patch file to work

[David Robinson]

I copied the speakup-0.08-patch file to my /usr/src directory and then I
typed in the patch -p0 <speakup-0.08-patch and I got an error telling me
that the -p or --string was invalid.  And then I typed in
speakup-0.08-patch becuase it asked me to eneter a fiel to patch.  It
created the documenation directories and files but when it got to the
maintaing directory and files I got an hunk #1 faild and ask me to enter a
fiel to patch.  How many files do I need to patch successfully before I
can compile the kernel?  Then just for the heck of it I tried to compile
my kernel using make mrproper and I got an error saying no rule to make
target mrproper stoped.  What am I doing wrong becuase I just can't get
the patch file to work for me.  I'm using mandrake linux 7.0 kernel
version 2.3.14.

David