Bane of our editing life: TOP online solutions that will save your text
Life consists of texts! School assignments, university term papers, work chats, and even Viber groups for parents. No matter what we write, a research paper or a message to mothers, it's quite difficult to safeguard against mistakes… if we don't know how to do it right.
Rubryka has compiled a selection of online resources that will help to check any Ukrainian-language text. And all the pieces and components will come together into a great text!
First, there will be a word!
Future editors are mastering the profession by studying the types of dictionaries. Not everyone needs such deep knowledge, but here is a list of virtual dictionaries that won't definitely go amiss.
Dictionary of the Ukrainian language. If you don't know the meaning of some word or want to once and for all make sure of how to write a particular adjective, it's for you!
Enter the word in the search bar and you'll have its explanation in several variants, as well as examples of usage taken from the literature.
Slovotvir. A platform for translations of borrowed words. If you're in pain over-borrowing, you can find Ukrainian equivalents here.
Spend half an hour on this site and you'll be using authentic Ukrainian words, not overused borrowings, thus keeping the integrity of the language.
Slovnyk.ua. This resource will save you from two annoying problems: mistakes in spelling and mistakes in the transliteration of Ukrainian words. Here you can find out when to cook borsch and when to cook borshch.
The tool will also help you check the spelling of words according to the current spelling rules and show which words were checked by recent users.
Mova.Info. Here you'll find several dictionaries, with examples of the mistakes made on Ukrainian-language television, starting with journalistic stories and ending with dubbed Ukrainian films.
For example, Mova.Info attracted our attention to the Open Dictionary of Surzhyk Corrections, the Dictionary of Foreign Words, and Taras Shevchenko's Electronic Dictionary of Language!
Slovopedia. The interface of the site is a bit outdated, but there are several different dictionaries. If, say, you still want to earn "American dollars" instead of "US dollars," visit the "Wrong or Right" page. And Anti-Surzhyk Dictionary waits for people still using russisms in the Ukrainian speech.
Velyka-Chy-Mala-Litera (Uppercase or lowercase letter – TN): Probably no need to explain, what can you check here?
And we can't do without punctuation and spelling
Online tools for checking punctuation and spelling of words and their combinations will successfully save you in most situations. And the good news is that such resources mostly find typos and extra spaces and become almost the best friends of their users.
Official site of the Ukrainian language. Here you can check the correct spelling of words by entering a piece of text in the window on the site. Also on the site, you can find synonyms for words that are repeated, as well as texts about Ukrainian dialects with numerous examples.
OnlineCorrector. This site drops the need to look in dictionaries, google the rules of current spelling and choose the right matches when translating.
The resource has a free version, but it checks texts just for a few rules, so you'll have to rely on the tools listed above. If you work with texts often and take care of their literacy, be prepared to pay from 199 hryvnias a month.
LanguageTool. This is a popular browser extension that helps in checking grammar and style. In the free version, you can check texts up to 10 thousand characters.
Paid versions for individual users and teams provide in-depth testing and cost from 65 hryvnias per month.
Without SMS, registration, and even the Internet
Yes, we're talking about you as the most reliable resource. No site, no matter how versatile it is, can provide a 100% guarantee that recognizes all errors. The best texts are written by hand, so you should develop your own skills.
Almost any training can be executed easily and unobtrusively. For example, on Instagram, through short funny videos, blogger Andrii Shymanovskyi persistently fights surzhyk and teaches his audience to speak beautifully and correctly.
And writer Yulia Slyvka not only tells about her own life and work, buzzing with activity in her publishing house but also, she talks about common language mistakes and explains how to memorize rules without effort in her stories.
If you want to improve your literacy through practice, Mova. Nation's DNA is at your service. On the site, you can do exercises on your chosen topics and write dictations. But be careful: on the site, you will not find edits according to the current spelling rules, so don't be surprised when the resource will consider something you wrote a mistake.
Ukrainian language spelling simulator is a place where language rules and exercises of different nature are collected. Here you will find text summaries and video tutorials, and after them, you will be able to correct the past mistakes.
And, of course, books! Reading really trains you. And it improves skills. So make it a good habit to read a few pages a day and see that not being able to Google, as it should, won't matter.
