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I need an aproximate spell checker, because I write often in French, without having a French keyboard.

One way that I write French is to use C-x 8 ' e for combinations, but it is too tiring to use it many times.

Another way is to write the word incorrectly, and press ispell-word, for it to correct it. For example, 'j'ai marchee' , in order to write "j'ai marché". I have to press this combination, because if I write "j'ai marche", the spell checker does not find the semantical error. It checks only the syntax.

I would like to ask if a spell checker exists in Emacs, where I can press "j'ai marche", and it finds all approximate matches, including the "j'ai marché". It is tiring to press 'ee' many times (many times I cannot find an approximate bad form that can be completed to some correct form in the way I need).

Or, I am interested about another way in emacs to write conveniently in French, using a British keyboard...

alinsoar
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  • This question appears to be off-topic because it is about a spell-checker that ought to be *approximate*. – devnull Aug 16 '13 at 19:17
  • I use a US keyboard layout, with a `Multi_key` (i.e. a "compose" key), so I can type `Multi_key ' e` which I find a lot more convenient than `C-x 8 ' e`. – Stefan Aug 21 '13 at 16:01
  • To use compose key, must first of all to configure the X server, etc. – alinsoar Aug 21 '13 at 19:03

1 Answers1

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I do not think that there is such a spell checker. It's probably very hard to write one, as good approximate suggestions require a somewhat deep understanding of the language in question, and natural language processing is quite a complex topic.

However, there is a somewhat simpler approach to writing French (or generally a foreign language) on a US keyboard: Just switch to an appropriate input method with C-\.

Emacs comes with a large selection of alternative input methods, for a wide range of languages and scripts, including Kyrillic, Korean, Chinese, etc. A good one for writing French text is probably latin-1-prefix.

This input method let's you type accented characters by typing the accent first, and then the character. For instance, typing ' first and then a afterwards inserts á into the buffer. Likewise, ` and then a inserts à. I use this method frequently to write German on a US keyboard.

For more information, consult International Character Sets and Input Methods in the Emacs manual.

  • Thanks. Interesting. I also remember that I used input method long time ago, but I forgot about it. Interesting. I am waiting for other suggestions before to finally select an answer. Now about the algorithms of approximative checker. I did not write one, but it is a classical algorithm of machine learning (neural networks may work nice for this problem or supervised learning), so I think that probabilistically it gives good results, after you train it enough. I will try to implement it for emacs -- good idea. – alinsoar Aug 16 '13 at 19:43
  • @alinsoar Well, machine learning is not particularly simple as well ;) Especially not without a good toolkit, and I don't think that anyone ever wrote such a thing for Emacs ;) –  Aug 16 '13 at 20:11
  • I took classes of machine learning and ai quite a lot in my life, but I did not write a great project like this one requires... But I will try it. I love machine learning, algebra, statistics, and maths. – alinsoar Aug 16 '13 at 20:20