Spelling check for multiple languages

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Level 1

5 points

Spelling check for multiple languages

The ability for the built-in spelling check to detect multiple languages seems to have worsened in El Capitan. I use both English and French and I notice two things that are now different in El Capitan:

The system now spells check according to the language of your keyboard layout. So if I'm using US International to type French words, they'll be marked as incorrect. The program that I've tested are Notes and Evernote.
The ability to distinguish between different languages has gotten worse overall. The same document in Notes had less "spelling check errors" (as opposed to actual spelling errors) in Mavericks than in El Capitan. In other words, Mavericks has a higher accuracy in terms of detecting which language a word actually belongs to than El Capitan.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Please fix it, Apple!

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Nov 16, 2015 5:33 AM

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Answer 1

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,910 points

Nov 16, 2015 7:12 AM in response to ptfan

Are you using "automatic" for your dictionary setting? Have you gone to Setup in the spelling menu and made sure only the French and English boxes are checked?

Most users find Automatic to be pretty unreliable. If your dictionary is set to French, do you still get words marked incorrect when using the US International PC layout to type that language?

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Answer 2

ptfan Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 16, 2015 11:34 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Yes, I checked only English and French.

I should clarify: The spell checker will stick with one language unless a new paragraph is started (by pressing Return for example) and then the first sentence of the new paragraph determines the language that the spell checker should check for for the entire paragraph. A French quote inside an English paragraph will be checked for English spelling and vice versa.

I notice this behaviour in iOS too, which only checks the language of the keyboard layout, but now Mac OS X seems to start to behave in much the same way.

Single language spell check works just fine, regardless of the language of the keyboard layout.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,910 points

Nov 16, 2015 12:16 PM in response to ptfan

ptfan wrote:

iOS ... only checks the language of the keyboard layout, but now Mac OS X seems to start to behave in much the same way.

I haven't seen this behavior on my OS X machine. If I type French with the US or US International PC layout active, with the dictionary set to Automatic, only French misspellings are underlined and the autocorrect only offers French options. The keyboard seems to have no influence.

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