A Review of the Best Online Chinese Grammar Checkers

Recently, we have received many inquiries about if there are any good Chinese grammar checkers for learners to use in their daily studies. They want something like Grammarly for English, which can help correct some basic grammar errors. So, we at Dig Mandarin did some research on several popular online Chinese grammar checkers, which were highly featured on Google or were recommended by other language platforms. I hope this review collection can help make your Chinese learning easier.

To test if these Chinese grammar checkers work well, first, we need to list a series of Chinese sentences with typical grammar errors. We have already introduced the Top 20 Common Mistakes Chinese Learners Make, and we selected 14 of them to form our test targets. Compared to paragraph errors, sentence grammar errors are much easier to identify and correct. No matter whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced learner, you need to deal with sentence errors.   

Here is a list of test sentences with common grammar errors:

1. 这个小狗是可爱。
2. 我想买一个电脑，一个书，一个衣服。
3. 下午二点，我们准备去图书馆两楼看二本书。
4. 他是不是美国人吗？
5. 我喜欢打篮球和我妹妹喜欢听音乐。我住在北京和我有一只狗。
6. 他以前常常在早上学了中文。
7. 这本书没好看。
8. 他结婚过两次，现在他想结婚和她。
9. 昨天的工作很多，我一直工作到晚上11点就做完。
10. 汉语课9点上课，他早上6点才到教室了。
11. 你会看见那边的那棵树吗?
12. 我吃面条在那个饭馆。
13. 他比我很高。
14. 一个女孩找你在办公室外面。

Can you correct all these sentences on your own? Give it a try and you can click here to check if your answers are correct.

The correct sentences:

1. 这只小狗很可爱。This puppy is very cute.
(Using “是” with adjectives inappropriately, Over-use of measure word “个”)

2. 我想买一台电脑，一本书，一件衣服。I want to buy a computer, a book, and a piece of clothing.
(Over-use of measure word “个”)

3. 下午两点，我们准备去图书馆二楼看两本书。At two o’clock in the afternoon, we are going to read two books on the second floor of the library.
(Misuse of “二” and “两”)

4. 他是不是美国人？ / 他是美国人吗？Is he American?
(Using “吗” for all Yes/No questions)

5. 我喜欢打篮球，我妹妹喜欢听音乐。我住在北京，我有一只狗。I like to play basketball, and my sister likes to listen to music. I live in Beijing, and I have a dog.
(Over-use of “和”)

6. 他以前常常在早上学中文。He used to study Chinese in the morning.
(Over-use of “了”)

7. 这本书不好看。This book is not good.
(Misuse of “不” and “没”)

8. 他结过两次婚，现在他想和她结婚。He was married twice and now he wants to marry her.
(Misuse of the separable words)

9. 昨天的工作很多，我一直工作到晚上11点才做完。I had a lot of work yesterday, and I didn’t finish my work until 11 o’clock in the evening.
(Confusing “就” with “才”)

10. 汉语课9点上课，他早上6点就到教室了。The Chinese class starts at 9:00, and he arrives at the classroom at 6:00 in the morning.
(Confusing “就” with “才”)

11. 你能看见那边的那棵树吗? Can you see that tree over there?
(Misuse of the modal verbs)

12. 我在那个饭馆吃面条。I eat noodles at that restaurant.
(Incorrect placement of adverbial phrases)

13. 他比我高。He is taller than me.  / 他比我高很多。He is much taller than me.
(Misuse of comparative sentences with “比”)

14. 办公室外面有个女孩找你。There is a girl looking for you outside the office.
(Unfamiliar with Existence sentence)

There are 20 errors and 14 types of common grammar mistakes in these test sentences. Let’s take a look at the performance of the following online Chinese grammar checkers.

A Review and Comparison of Online Chinese Grammar Checkers

Sapling

The original version:

The revised version:

Review:

There are 19 suggested edits, and among them, four of them are about punctuation, which is irrelevant. The use of an adjective as the predicate in sentence 1 was successfully corrected, which changes “是” to “很”. The second sentence about measure words was fully corrected. However, the incorrect measure word in the first sentence wasn’t detected. Although sometimes we hear “这个小狗” in spoken language, it should be more formal and accurate if it’s in written Chinese. In sentences 7, 12, and 14, the corrected sentences are correct in terms of grammar, but it changed the whole meaning. So, the corrections here are not ideal. Sentence 5 is interesting. Since there are two instances of over-use of “和”, but it just detected one. In sentences 4 and 6, the use of yes/no questions and the use of “了” were both corrected correctly. All other sentences and grammar issues were not corrected successfully. Five grammar error types were detected in total.

Text Gears

The original version:

The revised version:

Review:

There are four edits and two types of grammar errors detected. In sentence 1, the adjective acting as the predicate was corrected properly. However, it didn’t detect the measure word problem. In sentence 2, it detected the measure word errors successfully, but the revised version is still not acceptable. It doesn’t give the user a direct answer, which means you need to correct the suggested answer once again on your own. All other sentences and grammar errors were not detected. In total, there was only one error corrected successfully.

One good point is that the surface of the checker is quite clear. You can see which part you need to improve, including grammar, spelling, style, punctuation, and structure. It even gives you metrics on the readability of your content. If this checker worked correctly, it would be very helpful.

Sentence Checker

The original version:

The revised version:

Review:

Sentence Checker detected four grammar errors, which are also presented on the surface. As the other checkers did, this one only corrected sentence 1 for the adjective functioning as the predicate, but the measure word problem remained. It did correct the measure words in sentence 2. All other grammar problems were not detected. In total, there are two types of grammar errors that were corrected.

This Sentence Checker seems like the same tool as Grammar Checker. There are also other language checkers. You can try and see if they work better than the Chinese one. 

Language Tool

The original version:

The revised version:

Review:

It surprised me that I finally found a checker that could detect the “二” and “两” problem in sentence 3; although only one of them is corrected. There are actually three problems in that sentence, and all of them are about the use of “二” and “两”. Maybe “两本书” is stored in their database, but the general language grammar rules are not. The measure words in sentence 2 and the predicate in sentence 1 were corrected, as other checkers did. All other grammar problems were not detected.

Conclusion:

Even though I was profoundly impressed by many online English grammar checkers with their strong and intelligent functions, the Chinese grammar checkers shocked me a little because they are basically useless. At least the checkers I tested above didn’t perform well enough. Most of the common mistakes that second language learners might make were not corrected or even detected. Not to mention untypical mistakes and more complex grammar error types. Maybe there are still some truly useful grammar checkers that I don’t know about yet. So, if you know one, share it with us! I’m eager to see and use it.

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