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Everyone Makes Mistakes… but These English Grammar Checkers Will Help You Make Fewer
Everyone makes mistakes.
Every language learner knows this.
What’s more important is finding your mistakes and learning how to avoid them in the future.
An English grammar checker is one of the most useful tools for this purpose.
English grammar checkers show you the errors you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. Many of them will even explain the mistake so you learn from it.
In this post, I’ll share some amazing online English spelling and grammar check tools that’ll help you catch mistakes in your English writing, communicate clearly and grow as a language learner.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
English Grammar Checklist
When you’re checking your work for errors, you may be unsure of what exactly to check for. Memorizing this quick list below will help you spot and avoid some very common English grammatical mistakes.
- Spelling and punctuation: Check if you’ve misspelled any words or if you’ve missed a punctuation mark, like a full stop or a comma.
- Subject-verb agreement: Always ensure that the main verb in a sentence agrees with the subject, because if it doesn’t, your entire sentence can fall flat.
This means that both the verb and subject should be singular or plural as the case may be. For instance, if I wrote “Sally likes apples,” the third person subject (Sally) agrees with the verb “likes.”
- Long sentences: There’s a reason why learners are encouraged to write short sentences. But if you prefer to write in long, complex sentences using several clauses and conjunctions, then make sure you check your work at least twice as it becomes difficult to spot the errors.
- Tense: Make sure that your tense is consistent throughout. For example, make sure that you haven’t begun to write in the past tense and concluded in the present.
- Singular/plurals: This is a common mistake. Sometimes we may have used a noun’s plural form when we meant to use the singular, or vice versa.
8 English Grammar Check Tools That Language Learners Can Rely On
Microsoft Word
Before you start looking at online tools, it might be helpful to look at what the average word processor such as Microsoft Word can do. Microsoft Word has built-in grammar and spelling correction software that’s useful for English language learners and native speakers alike.
Microsoft Word will underline misspelled words and repeated words in red. It’ll also underline grammar errors in green. Just right-click on the underlined section and you’ll get a list of possible corrections.
You can also change the dialect of English (U.S., U.K., etc.) from Microsoft Word’s language settings.
Microsoft Word also offers a “Thesaurus” feature to find synonyms for words, as well as a “Research” feature for definitions and translations.
Grammarly
Nowadays, we tend to do most of our work online. While most blogging sites have basic error-checking software already preloaded, it’s usually not enough. This is where Grammarly comes in, as a free-to-download plugin to use with Chrome.
It basically functions as a “writing assistant” and will ensure that your every blog post, email, LinkedIn article or Facebook status is free of grammatical mistakes.
It’ll remind you to put in hyphens or delete repeated words and will provide suggestions for appropriate word usage.
Best of all, Grammarly will also thoroughly explain why a certain word/punctuation choice was incorrect. That means your mistakes can actually become quick and memorable grammar lessons, just like we discussed at the beginning of this article.
Ginger
Ginger is another online grammar-checker that works with Chrome. However, Ginger has some very nifty bonus features.
For instance, it offers a contextual spelling checker, which means it checks both the spelling of the word as well as the context it’s used in. That way, it can find words that you’ve used incorrectly even if they’re not misspelled (e.g. if you used the wrong version of “their,” “there” or “they’re”).
Ginger will also help you enhance your vocabulary and even guide you on how to rephrase entire sentences, making this an ideal tool for beginners.
OnlineCorrection
If you’re looking for a handy online English grammar check tool and don’t want to go through the hassle of downloading and installing new software, then OnlineCorrection is a great website.
It checks for spelling, grammar and even has an autocorrect option that’ll automatically correct all your mistakes. (You’ll still get a list of the changes that were made so you can double-check.)
You can choose from a number of English dialects, including American, British, South African, New Zealand and Australian, to suit your context.
Sentence Checker
If you prefer a very simple error-correction tool to check if your sentences are alright, then Sentence Checker is a good one.
All you need to do is copy-paste your text and check for errors, and voila, you’re done! Any mistakes will be highlighted in red or yellow.
Virtual Writing Tutor
If you need an online tool with more options then you might want to check out Virtual Writing Tutor. Membership is free, and as a member you can check up to 3,000 words at a time. Non-members can check up to 500 words at a time.
Apart from the usual grammar and spelling checking, it can also check your vocabulary—for example, it can help you choose between academic and conversational words or avoid cliches.
If you’re summarizing something, you can select “Check Paraphrase” to compare your summary to the original.
PaperRater
PaperRater works like most online grammar correction software, but it also offers writing suggestions and checks for plagiarism.
So this is a must-have tool if you’re a student and have assignments or term papers due, as you can use it for proofreading and ensuring you didn’t accidentally copy any of your work from an outside source.
It’ll also give feedback on how “readable” your work is, phrases to avoid, alert you when you’re slipping into the passive voice and even analyze how strong your sentence openings are.
Hemingway App
Inspired by the great writer Ernest Hemingway, who was known for his minimalist style of storytelling, this app will ensure that everything you write is clear, coherent and extremely easy to read.
Once you put some text into Hemingway, you’ll find that it gets color-coded.
A sentence in yellow means you need to shorten it, while a red one means it’s rather difficult to read, so you should try editing it. A word marked in purple means you can use a shorter word out of a suggested list, while phrases in green indicate passive voice.
Before sending that professional email or cover letter, it’d be a good idea to run your text through Hemingway and check for how “readable” it is.
While these English grammar check tools are reliable and very convenient, don’t forget to proofread the final draft on your own, too. Try using English grammar checks as a learning tool, paying attention to your most frequent mistakes and training yourself to get better and better.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
