Grammarly

Have you ever heard of Grammarly?

It's an online grammar checker that does more than just look for strange grammar. It points out grammatical and spelling errors; it gives suggestions for what it thinks is correct. Highlighting words also brings up a list of synonyms. Of course, if the human thinks they are correct, they may override that correction. It's not obnoxious like Microsoft's autocorrect, which insists it is right regardless of what you say.

Anyway, I recently found out about their chrome extension and decided to give it a go. It's fairly accurate and mostly free. If you are not confident in your choice of words or sentence structures, it is a great free app.

However, for more advanced users, if you have advanced issues (such as choice of words, colloquialism, or other less common grammatical errors secondary language learners rarely have the chance to make, having not learned them) they require an upgrade which you have to purchase.

While I say why waste money on a free service, I feel that this particular service is worthwhile. It's like having an English teacher watching over your shoulder, telling you where you're wrong and why.

It's a fairly straightforward app and I think most people could benefit from its free services. Do check it out at grammarly.com.