How can I change the language for automatic spelling correction?

Question

I set my input source to be US English. And the flag showing on the taskbar is also an American flag.

But whenever I type something in Mail.app or Notes.app the spell check still corrects my spelling to British English:

e.g. it highlights my "organize" and suggest s"organise".

Please, how to make my Mac (OS X 10.8) an American?

apaderno · Answer 1 · 2012-08-30T20:26:01.180

77

To add to what gentmatt said, in the case you need to keep "Automatic by Language" because you happen to write in different languages, click on "Set Up…" in the list shown for the Spelling option.

screenshot

On the dialog box that appears, you can change the order for the languages. In my case, this is the order I chose.

screenshot

Now, I can write organize, and the word is not corrected, nor do I get a suggestion for writing organise. (It happens that organise is shown as incorrect.)

edited Aug 30 '12 at 20:26

answered Aug 30 '12 at 19:31

apaderno

4,478

and for snow lep? – adolf garlic Mar 25 '13 at 19:13
3

In Mavericks, you can get there via System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Text -> Spelling (or Language & Region -> Keyboard Preferences -> Text -> Spelling). – djc Feb 18 '14 at 10:01
Thank you, this one is the answer I was looking for as a non-native English speaker/user. – karni Apr 20 '18 at 16:25
1

Wow! The "Set up..." for this is well hidden! – Jasper de Vries May 28 '21 at 09:24

score 41 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 26 '16 at 18:40

41

For OS X 10.8:

System Preferences > Languages & Text > Text > Spelling

image of control

Or for OS X 10.9 and later:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Spelling

edited Jan 26 '16 at 18:40

user3439894

58,676

answered Jul 27 '12 at 10:43

gentmatt

49,722

score 12 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 25 '13 at 17:26

12

In Mavericks (10.9):

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Text -> Spelling

or

System Preferences -> Language & Region -> Keyboard Preferences -> Text -> Spelling

edited Nov 25 '13 at 17:26

Community

1

answered Nov 25 '13 at 13:44

Patrick Kenny

693

This should be a comment or an edit adding to a previous answer as it is the same just via a different menu route – mmmmmm Nov 25 '13 at 15:46
3

Actually, it was helpful to me having this as a separate answer as the previous answer references the non-existent (in Mavericks) UX path "System Preferences → Languages & Text → Text → Spelling" path. – easyE Sep 10 '14 at 07:47

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 25 '14 at 19:19

4

Autocorrect with multiples languages (automatic by language) in Mavericks is broken. It does not underline all the bad written words. I have to select only 1 language to get it properly working.

answered Jan 25 '14 at 19:19

user68578

41
2

Evidence? I'm not finding this to be the case. – Douglas Held Dec 14 '14 at 13:23

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 01 '23 at 14:51

Building on the other answers, in Ventura this is now located in

System Settings > Keyboard > Input Methods : Edit... > Automatic by Language > Set Up...

This can also be changed using the command line with :

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSPreferredSpellServers '((en,Apple),("en_GB",Apple),(fr, Apple),(es, Apple))'

where the part between ' quotes is a list of the languages you want to spell check, in order.

You can use

defaults read NSGlobalDomain NSPreferredSpellServers

to show the current list of languages before changing it.

(Sorry for the French screenshots :) ).

That has worked perfectly for me. Thanks a lot! – Denis Jul 16 '23 at 06:24 — Denis, Jul 16 '23 at 06:24

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 10 '21 at 17:53

0

What worked for me is:

Go to "System Preferences" -> "Language & Region".

Under "Preferred languages" add "English (US)" and remove "English".

This changed the spell checking from British English to American English.

answered Apr 10 '21 at 17:53

Haim

101

Regardless of what you have set in Preferred Languages, spellcheck in Apple apps can be set to either US or UK English, or French, or Spanish or whatever via System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Spelling (or in the app via Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar – Tom Gewecke Apr 10 '21 at 20:16

Foliovision · Answer 7 · 2021-11-10T21:14:18.143

These answers were great for the most part but have slowly aged out of date after ten years. I'm currently on Mojave 10.14.6 here. The global option remains in the Text section of the Keyboard preference pane but that section has mostly been taken over by text expansion. Spelling has moved so here's a couple of screenshots to pilot you in:

One can set multiple languages. Here's the ones I have set:

You can also change the language for spelling while in an application.

How can I change the language for automatic spelling correction?

7 Answers7

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