How to improve your spelling: the best digital tools

Do you notice that you make spelling mistakes when you write in your native or foreign language? These mistakes are not catastrophic and can happen to anyone because of haste, loss of concentration, or large amounts of text. In this article, we’ll explain how to improve your spelling and show you the most effective tools.

What are the reasons for spelling mistakes?

Spelling skills are essential for all aspects of our lives, from writing essays in school to resumes and correspondence at work. While reviewing resumes, employers tend to ignore those that have several spelling mistakes. Therefore, it is necessary to work on your spelling skills as well.

In general, spelling refers to the process of forming words in the correct order or constructing words given all the rules of a language and their exceptions. Types of spelling errors can vary from language to language. We misspell words for a variety of reasons, but we can summarize them as follows:

• Lack of knowledge of the rules. Language rules are often forgotten, and people rely on feelings and intuition, which are not always correct.
• Ignorance of exceptions. Rules also have exceptions, which can only be mastered by memorization. If you don’t use a word regularly, its spelling can slip your mind.
• Large text. When working on a large text, it’s easy to miss a mistake because rereading a text takes so much time. Many people neglect this.
• Loss of concentration. You’re writing a text, notice a mistake, but you’re suddenly interrupted. After the conversation, you return to work, forgetting to correct the error.
• Inspiration. Have you ever written quickly, not paying attention to mistakes, because you are in a hurry to write down an idea that has arisen in your head?

The solution to the first two problems comes easily: it is worth reading the theory, refreshing your knowledge, and remembering the exceptions. Some well-known techniques can help you.

Techniques to improve spelling

Read more. When you read books, you automatically remember what a word looks like, and how it is written. In practice, it will make you hesitate if you see a misspelled word. However, pay attention to the quality of the texts you read. Texts in posts or on social media may contain errors. So, it is better to choose proven editions and media sources.

Learn popular prefixes and suffixes. Many suffixes and prefixes in English and other European languages come from Latin and Greek. If you know them, most words will be much easier to remember.

Organize tests for yourself. Test your knowledge to see where you are now. Create quizzes, write dictations with YouTube videos, and use vocabulary cards and word lists. Make a list of the words where you made mistakes after each test.

Use a list of misspelled words. Start with a list of common hard-to-write words. Once you’ve learned it, create lists of the ones that seem difficult for you. Change it according to the results of the tests.

Practice writing. An effective way is to write words, and use them in your blog, diary, and e-mails. Pay special attention as you write for spelling mistakes. Spell checkers will help you.

Whatever approach you choose to improve your spelling, it is critical to remember regularity. Ten minutes of daily practice is more effective than an hour once a month. You can practice words while commuting or take a break from writing, check the text, and remember mistakes. Constant practice makes progress.

All of the above refers more to preventive ways to improve spelling. Now consider how to improve spelling in an existing text. The task has been made easier by the availability of various digital tools.

Best digital tools to improve your spelling

Built-in spell checker

Every office suite has a built-in spell checker. It checks the words in your text for correct spelling and offers one or more options for fixing them. It is convenient because spelling errors will already be visible at the stage of text creation. You won’t have to use an additional tool.

Errors are highlighted based on the language of the document. In addition, users can change it or define a different language for a particular passage. The spell checker is available for all languages and dialects that the editor supports.

LanguageTool

LanguageTool is a multilingual spell, grammar, and style checker. It offers a text improvement tool in 20 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German (Austrian, Swiss, and German dialects), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, etc. The tool also checks text, finds errors, and immediately offers correct word choices and punctuation for text up to 10,000 characters.

Although not all features are available in the free package. Premium versions increase the limit of checked texts to 100,000 characters and suggest improving style and tone, a style guide, detection of incorrect names, titles in e-mails, and numbers. Premium subscription users can use the tool as a plugin for Google Docs and Microsoft Word. The price is €3.99/month for individual users.

LanguageTool is available in a desktop version for iOS, Windows, and macOS or in an online version. Another option is to embed the LanguageTool checker directly into ONLYOFFICE editors for free. After installation, select the sentence, paragraph, or text passage you want to verify and click the plugin. You’ll find all the highlighted errors and suggestions for fixing them in the left-side toolbar.

Grammalecte

Grammalecte is an open-source grammar and typography checker for French texts. The principle of its work is to accurately recognize errors and reduce “false positives”. The corrector cannot offer you corrections he is unable to identify. It prevents the appearance of additional errors in the text. In addition to spelling, Grammalecte detects errors related to punctuation, typography, gender and number concordance, conjugation, confusion, and homonyms.

Grammalecte can be downloaded as an extension for Chrome or Firefox, or installed as a plugin for ONLYOFFICE editors.

Typograf

Typograf is a comprehensive tool for preparing text for publication. It helps you automatically place non-breaking spaces, remove redundant spaces, fix minor typos, insert correct quotation marks, replace hyphens with dashes, and much more. The program works with English, Spanish, Latvian, French, Italian, German, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, and other languages and corrects text according to language specifications. Check your text online or use the free plugin for ONLYOFFICE.

How to get all in one

ONLYOFFICE editors provide tools to work with text documents, tables, presentations, and forms. In addition to its built-in spell checker, the editors integrate LanguageTool, Grammalecte, and Typograf for identifying misspellings. Thus, you can write flawless text and prepare it for printing without leaving the editor window or switching from one application to another.

Ready to try? Download free desktop apps for Windows, Linux, and Mac, or start working in the cloud:

GET DESKTOP APP                    TRY IN THE CLOUD

Find all helpful tools and installation guides in ONLYOFFICE App Directory.