The quality of Spelling & Grammar Checkers in other languages

Factual Questions
1

I was just wondering how good spelling and grammar checking is in Languages other than english.

  1. Does MS Word have built in Spell checker for your language

  2. Does MS word have built in Grammar checker for your language

  3. Are there any popular 3rd party software suites to do Spelling Grammar checking

  4. How would you rate the spelling/Grammar checkers in your local language compared the english version of MS Word

2

I can only comment on Spanish…but, here goes…

  1. Word has spell-check capabilities for many languages. Under Spanish, you can choose from “Spain - Modern Sort” or “Spain - Traditional Sort”. Some of the distinctions seem a bit strange: there are ‘sorts’ for almost every Spanish-speaking country in America (save Belize, and, oddly enough, the US). Unless slang, idioms, different verb usages and constructions and colloquialisms are built in on a per-country basis (which I highly doubt), I question the validity of such distinctions.

Just as in English (Eye/ I; there/their/they’re; it’s/its), Spanish spell check cannot differentiate between (hacia/ hacía; seria/ sería) and has difficulty with neologisms, idioms, and compound words. I was writing an essay that used the word ‘metatextual’ and Word flagged it.

  1. Word also has a grammar check for Spanish (none of the spell-checks or grammar checks come with the normal installation of Word; you must install them separately off the CD). But, just like English, it’s easily confused. It sometimes incorrectly flags fragments after using ‘Ud.’ (it thinks the period marks the end of a sentence), or when a clause is an exclamation or a question. Just like Word grammar check in English hates passive voice sentences, Spanish grammar check has some idiosyncrasies.

  2. Don’t know. I had a Spanish program back when I was in high school, but it was imperfect, too. For example, to say “I am tired”, the translator might come back with “Soy cansado”. Non-case languages (like Spanish :slight_smile: ) that use auxiliary words in different verb tenses can also be mis-translated. Anyway, you didn’t ask about translating programs per se, but if you are a non-native speaker, the program can miss errors you may make because it translates too literally.

3

They speak English in Belize. It used to be called British Honduras.

4

bump