Gingerit: Correct Grammatical Errors Using Python

Having good fluency and grammar is essential in any language. Further, if you are building a python project which requires solving spelling and grammatical errors, you can use ‘gingerit’ library.

In this article, we will discuss the library and how you can use it to correct spelling and grammatical errors.

Grammar Checks in Python using Gingerit
Using ‘gingerit’ solve grammatical and spelling errors.

What exactly is Gingerit?

Gingerit is an API wrapper for using grammatical services provided by gingersoftware.com. The company specializes in grammar checking and paraphrasing. So, in simpler words, you are using GingerSoftware by using this library in Python.

Quick Start Using Gingerit API

Firstly let us understand how you can use this library. ‘Gingerit’ is an open-source library; therefore, installing it is pretty simple. It provides all the features, including checking for spelling correction and also checking grammatical errors. To use these features, first, you need to install ‘gingerit’ on your computer. You can easily install this library using ‘pip’.

pip install gingerit

After installing this library, you can start using it. Let us see how you can use this library. First, let us take an example where we correct the input text taken from the user using input().

from gingerit.gingerit import GingerIt
example = input("Enter the input text:  ")
correct = GingerIt().parse(example)
print(correct['result'])

Output:

Enter the input text:  I go to office yesterday
I went to office yesterday

From the output of the above example, you can see how we can solve the grammatical error we made in the input text. We use the ‘GingerIt()’ function to correct the grammatical errors, this function returns the corrected text in the form of a dictionary, and hence we use ‘result’ to print the corrected sentence. Further, you can also use this library to correct spelling errors too. Let us again use an example to understand how we can achieve this.

from gingerit.gingerit import GingerIt
example = input("Enter the input text:  ")
correct = GingerIt().parse(example)
print(correct['result'])

Output:

Enter the input text: Every girl must bring their own linch
Every girl must bring their own lunch

As you can see in the above example, the spelling mistake ‘linch’ is changed to correct ‘lunch’ after parsing it in Gingerit.

Is Gingerit Free?

Yes, the API is free and doesn’t require you to create any new account. But yes, you can get some rate limits when you start using it aggressively.

Similar to Gingerit online, this API works upon the free endpoint provided by the developers and checks your sentences over there. But it has a character limit of 450 characters.

Gingerit Not Working

There are multiple reasons for your Gingerit API not to work. This includes errors from rate character limit to no internet connection. Here are all the reasons we’ve identified for making API not working

1. No Internet

Gingerit API requires active internet to work. So, check that if you’re running your Python script, the environment has access to the internet. Moreover, check if your internet access is not blocked for servers.

2. Your IP is blocked by Gingerit Security

Most SaaS products are protected behind a firewall or security layer, which blocks a few requests that it thinks are suspicious. Ensure you get a valid response from the API using your IP before using a Python Script. To check the API, you need to open the online GingerSoftware Grammar Checker and check there.

3. Weekly Rate Limit

The Weekly Rate Limit is one of the limiting factors for any public APIs we have on the internet. This is required to stop the attackers from making multiple requests at a time and overloading the server.

In layman’s terms, your computer may have recently sent many requests to API. As a result, you have to wait for the cooldown to get over and make a new request again. Gingerit has a certain undisclosed weekly limit[1] that prevents you from using the API over and over again.

4. Character Limit

GingerSoftware has a character limit of 450 characters on their free API. You need to either break your sentences into a batch of 450 characters or create a premium account in GingerSoftware where you can remove this limit.

Facing Gingerit Json Error?

Json Error appears when you receive an invalid response from the API. This usually happens when you pass a long sentence as input in the API. If your sentence is more than 450 characters, you’ll receive an error message with the ‘CharacterLimit’ error[2].

This error message is not parsed by the library correctly, leading to Json Error. This character limit is being reduced from time to time. A few years back, there was no character limit. Then it was changed to a maximum of 600 characters per request, and now it’s down to 450 characters.

Can We Use Gingerit in our applications?

Yes, you can use Gingerit if your application requires minimal grammar checks. If your application checks the grammar aggressively, you’ll most likely receive a rate limit.

The average sentence length is around 75-100 characters. Keeping that in mind, you’ll only be able to check a maximum of 4-5 sentences in one request. I know it’s less, but what can you expect from a free public API?

FAQs

Here are some of the FAQs on the Gingerit module –

Is Gingerit an official library from GingerSoftware?

No, Gingerit is not an official library from GingerSoftware.

Is Ginger good for grammar checks?

Yes, Ginger has some robust algorithms to detect grammar mistakes.

When is the Gingerit library updated last time?

Gingerit library was updated on July 6, 2021, as per its GitHub repository.

Conclusion

We always need grammar checks in our applications, especially when dealing with user input. Gingerit can be very useful in cases with minimal grammar checks.

References

1. Ginger. Weekly limits on API. gingersoftware.com. Published Nov 20, 2013.
2. Github. The character limit on Gingerit. github.com (issue). Reported May 26, 2020.

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