Grammar Checkers

[Lostincyberspace]

Are there any Open Source grammar checkers? And if there are how good are they?

[daynah]

I must say, darling, grammar is very difficult. There are rules, yes, but with tons of exceptions and the longer the sentence, the more difficult it gets for computers to understand its structure. I really recommend you just learn grammar. Diagram a sentence. Heck, diagram a sentence in another language.

I have on my desk (but I'm not on my desk) a grammar book that has nice little tabs so I can flip to topics. Difficult words, sentence structures, letter formats, citations... it's all there. I got it while at a college school bookstore. It was a textbook... for a class I wasn't taking! But I know a useful book when I see it. Any book that has that information in it, in an easy to understand manner will fit the bill (NOT the true MLA and APA style guides on BOTH accounts) much better than any computer ever will be able to.

That's kind of the beauty of language. Computers just can't get it.

[~LoKe]

Have you ever seen the mess an online translator spits out? Well, apply that to a program correcting grammar. There's no way it can accept input and understand context in order to properly form it.

Not yet, anyways.

[Lostincyberspace]

I must say, darling, as an english major... grammar is very difficult. There are rules, yes, but with tons of exceptions and the longer the sentence, the more difficult it gets for computers to understand its structure. I really recommend you just learn grammar. Diagram a sentence. Heck, diagram a sentence in another language.

I have on my desk (but I'm not on my desk) a grammar book that has nice little tabs so I can flip to topics. Difficult words, sentence structures, letter formats, citations... it's all there. I got it while at a college school bookstore. It was a textbook... for a class I wasn't taking! But I know a useful book when I see it. Any book that has that information in it, in an easy to understand manner will fit the bill (NOT the true MLA and APA style guides on BOTH accounts) much better than any computer ever will be able to.

That's kind of the beauty of language. Computers just can't get it.
Well I mean even a basic type like capitals at the start of sentences. oh and computers can get it, people just can't program it. I know that for a really good grammar checkers we will need to wait for AI learning to catch up.

[forrestcupp]

Well I mean even a basic type like capitals at the start of sentences. oh and computers can get it, people just can't program it. I know that for a really good grammar checkers we will need to wait for AI learning to catch up.

For basics, there is LanguageTool (http://www.languagetool.org/), which is a plugin for openoffice. It can also be used on its own. It catches some simple stuff, but you can't totally rely on it.

There is also a pretty good online spelling, grammar, and thesaurus checker here (http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/).

[Lostincyberspace]

In writing the more eyes or in this case scanners you can have look at it the better. Human is best but they get tired after 50 sentences of not being capitalized.

[daynah]

Then do the basic things like cap you sentences so that the humans can work on the harder grammar and content.

[eljoeb]

Thanks for posting the language tool thing. I always wanted a basic grammar checker that caught the silly stuff in Linux. It doesn't have to be perfect, just the really simple stuff.

[jken146]

I'm of the opinion that you should re-read everything you write. All grammar checkers (and many spell checkers) that I've used have too many flaws that annoy me intensely. OpenOffice language tools will pick up some things though.

[Biochem]

I don't know for english but Druide's Antidote is a very good French grammar checker. It works weel in linux and integrates in OpenOffice. But unfortunatelly it's not open source. It's a good investment though.

So, yes it can be done, even in language more complicated than english.

I'm not affiliated with Druide software, just a satisfied customer