Checking spelling and grammar in multiple languages can present unique problems, such as text that seems to be correct is flagged with grammar or spelling errors or words misspelled in another language are not flagged as incorrect. You can do some things to determine whether the problem is related to language-specific features.

To learn more about how to find the spelling and grammar checker and how to use them, see Check spelling and grammar. If you want to type only a few characters in another language, see Insert ASCII or Unicode Latin-based symbols and characters.

 Important   If you have Outlook Express 6.0 and installed Microsoft Office 2007 but French is the only available spell check language, you need to use a third-party spell checker. For more information, see Spell checking issues with Outlook Express 6.0.

• Make sure the language is enabled

• Make sure the text is identified with the correct language

Make sure the language is enabled

To correctly check the spelling and grammar in another language, the languages must be enabled in both Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Additionally, you might have to install a Language Pack before you can check the spelling in certain languages. For more information about how to enable languages in Microsoft Office, see Set display and editing languages and Determine if you need a Language Pack.

For more information, see Step-by-step: preparing your computer to type and edit text in another language and Switch between different languages as you type.

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Make sure the text is identified with the correct language

If the spelling checker isn't checking words that you typed in another language, or it indicates that words in another language that you typed correctly are misspelled, the words may not be identified with the correct language identification. These problems could be caused by:

• The Detect languages automatically feature misidentifying the language that you are typing. Try typing more words in the language that you want or clear the Detect languages automatically check box. For more information, see Turn on automatic language options and Turn off the Detect language automatically option.
• The Automatically switch keyboard to match language of surrounding text option may be turned on and causing typographical errors by changing your keyboard language as you type. Try typing more words in the language that you want or clear the Automatically switch keyboard to match language of surrounding text check box. For more information, see Turn on automatic language options.
• The wrong language was selected when a portion of the text was manually set.

  To manually change the language of a section of text, do the following:

  1. Highlight the section of text that you want to manually set the language for.
  2. Start the spelling checker. For more information on where you can find your spelling checker, see Check spelling and grammar.
  3. Under Mark selected text as, click the language that you want the section of text to be identified as. If the languages that you use that are not shown above the double line, you must enable those languages (turn on the language-specific options) for them to be available.
• The wrong dictionary is selected for the language, for example, English (United States) instead of English (United Kingdom).

  To change the dictionary for a particular language, do the following:

  1. Turn on the spelling checker. To find the spelling checker for the program that you are using, see Check spelling and grammar.
  2. Under Dictionary language, select the language and location that you want, for example English (New Zealand).
  3. Under Mark selected text as, click the language that you want the section of text to be identified as. If the languages that you use that are not shown above the double line, you must enable those languages (turn on the language-specific options) for them to be available.

 Note   If you use one particular country/region for a language, such as English (South Africa) more than another, you might consider changing the country/region in your Control Panel so that country/region's dictionary is used by default. For more information, see Change the default country/region, date, time, number or measurements format.

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