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Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

refine.sh

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Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#201

Post by xwolfi »

dkga wrote: post #61
beAbU wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you are not a citizen of the British Commonwealth What do you regard as the British Commonwealth, and what variant of English spelling to you expect people to use who are not part of this grouping? Just so that you know, in case you don't, "US English" is used just about exclusively in the US, and UK English is used in most of the rest of the world, despite the fact that most of our devices incorrectly default…

I work at an international organisation, and can confirm. My understanding is that is that at the international level, only the US-based international organisations use US English. To be sure, I don‘t have any dog in this fight, just highlighting a fact from my experience that many here might not know.

This feels wrong, I work in China in a European multinational with low number of Americans, yet we all spell in a mixture with no expectation of consistency: half the sentence can be in British, the rest in American and it will be an Australian reading the email and they will feel absolutely nothing: multi national corporations full of non-native speakers are completely used to the confusion. I'm French myself, I write color as often as I write colour, and practice and practise are completely identical to me.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#202

Post by xwolfi »

butshouldyou wrote: post #57
dreamcompiler wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So apparently the tool is slanted toward American English where the non-word practise is properly treated as a spelling error like colour . If you use these words in writing for Americans and you are not a citizen of the British Commonwealth, you instantly mark yourself as arrogant.

Huge quantities of english speakers, who are not from the Commonwealth, learn British English.

We learn both, tbh... And then get confused all our life, it's not like we choose one style in school, school teaches us that English actually has two dominant spellings and here is the American, here is the British and deal with it.

Non-native English speakers don't learn English exactly the same way as natives learning from their parents.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#203

Post by xwolfi »

speedgoose wrote: post #139
dreamcompiler wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So apparently the tool is slanted toward American English where the non-word practise is properly treated as a spelling error like colour . If you use these words in writing for Americans and you are not a citizen of the British Commonwealth, you instantly mark yourself as arrogant.

As a Frenchman, I enjoy writing colour and being arrogant.

Quelle que soit la facon dont ils ecrivent, ce sera toujours une faute d'orthographe, puisque la seule vraie facon d'ecrire serait couleur. L'anglais, americain ou britannique, n'est qu'une geante faute d'orthographe du francais.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#204

Post by xwolfi »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #197
dreamcompiler wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So apparently the tool is slanted toward American English where the non-word practise is properly treated as a spelling error like colour . If you use these words in writing for Americans and you are not a citizen of the British Commonwealth, you instantly mark yourself as arrogant.

I learned colour at school in France.

I learned that both exist in school in France. It doesn't matter, I write both interchangeably and nobody ever cared nor corrected me.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#205

Post by xwolfi »

tshaddox wrote: post #177
cjs_ac wrote: post #25

The screenshot shows the (corrected) example sentence: > Sometimes I still make mistakes with articles and prepositions, but my grammar is getting better every day I practice. In American/Simplified English, this is grammatically correct. However, in 'full fat' English, practice is a noun, whereas practise is a verb; e.g. : > I go to my practice to practise medicine. The problem I have with this website is that it's…

Fluent American readers are likely to think "practise" is a typo. It's not even one of the commonly-known British/American spelling differences (like "color"/"colour"). Unless you know your audience is likely to be more familiar with British spelling, I'd avoid "practise."

They're not very smart then: most non-native people know there are several big mainstream ways to spell English, and we learn that on top of our own languages.

Couldn't American schools teach English the same way, like, that there are no single proper way ?

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#206

Post by bmn__ »

teekert wrote: post #148
cjs_ac wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an old meme: https://imgur.com/thats-bit-harsh-steam-XCEdD8W In the UK, it's considered good form to be humorous when making an argument; I gather that in the US, you're supposed to sound like you're making a speech to prepare troops for war. I apologise if, in the course of describing how a product is unsuitable for use in my culture, I made that argument according to the norms of my culture.

I once saw this movie where several UK English words were compared to US English and US came of very “simplified”. Ie, pavement “Side walk” (because walk on the side). And several things like Lorry and Hauler all becoming “truck”. I guess it was very cherry picked (I can’t find it now sadly). Ah well, I once read an argument for “EU English”. If it’s anything like my Dunglish (Dutch-English “What talk you about”) it…

http://enwp.org/Euro_English

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#207

Post by illiac786 »

mcapodici wrote: post #97

Languagetool is an open source tool you can run as a local spelling and grammar checker. It's different to Grammarly - less AI and more rules based. I often use both tools at the same time. I wrote a quick intro on how to self host this - https://martincapodici.com/2025/05/10/check-your-writing-usi... .

LanguageTool only works in the browser though, as far as I can tell?

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#209

Post by BrandoElFollito »

xwolfi wrote: post #204
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned colour at school in France.

I learned that both exist in school in France. It doesn't matter, I write both interchangeably and nobody ever cared nor corrected me.

Yes, we also had lessons about the differences between BE and AE so we are aware of both, it is just that when Brian was in the kitchen, he was asking about the colour of something.

The reference to Brian being in the kitchen is understandable only for Gen X in France. (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_is_Brian%3F, only in French unfortunately but you also have https://youtu.be/11jG7lkwDwU?si=gQoVL_AmBfQMrZbX&t=57)

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#210

Post by patrakov »

AdilZtn wrote: post #144
chilipepperhott wrote: post #125

LLM usage would immediately disqualify this from most academic writing.

Could you elaborate why?

Just guessing: the rules, as they are written, prohibit any usage of LLMs (not just for text generation), and, as is the case with any regulations, must be interpreted literally.
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