They therefore have to sometimes struggle to express themselves correctly in English, only to be dismayed that native English speakers can immediately notice the flaws in their writing.
When English is a Foreign Language for you
Microsoft Research has created a useful online proofing tool to help people who use English as a foreign language.
This tool, called ESL Assistant, is a web service that analyzes text for the common mistakes that non-native English speakers, especially those from Southeast Asia, often make in their writing such as the choice of determiners and prepositions.
Type some English sentences into the text box and the tool will look for possible problems in your writing and indicate them with wavy green underlines.
Once it identifies possible mistakes in your writing, the tool will generate suggestions for correcting the problems. What’s even more interesting is that the tool will find you real-world examples of both the incorrect and correct usage from other web pages on the Internet using Bing.
You can just hover your mouse over the suggested phrase and the search results in the two Bing windows will change automatically.
Check Errors in your Outlook Emails with ESL
Anyone can use the ESL (English as Second Language) Tool to check their emails and other writings for errors online though the site requires the Silverlight plugin.
The other option is that you download the ESL addon for Microsoft Outlook and integrate the web service into your email program.
