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The Deepl writing assistant helps you to write appealing and grammatically correct texts. The free browser tool is based on an AI
Deepl Writing Assistant: Making texts better
It’s not always easy to find the right words. This is especially true for people who are perhaps not quite so proficient with the written word. Fortunately, however, there are now AI tools that provide support when writing texts – such as the Deepl writing assistant. I took a closer look at it and tried it out.
- I have known and used Deepl regularly for some time now – especially for translations. In contrast to some other translation programs, such as Google’s, Deepl actually “spits out” usable translations without strangely woody formulations. My expectations of Deepl’s writing assistant were correspondingly high:
- For my test of the Deepl writing assistant, I simply enter https://www.deepl.com/de/write into the browser and it takes me to the desired page.
- Optically, the typing assistant looks exactly like the Deepl translator. On the left-hand side, I find an input mask into which I can type or copy my own text.
- Directly above the text, I can select the language in which I want to write my text. So far, German, English (British) and English (American) are available for selection. (as of June 2024) When I enter the text, an optimized variant is displayed in the right-hand text field at the same time:
- Changes are displayed in a green font and underlined, texts and text passages that have not been changed remain black. This allows me to see at a glance whether and which changes the Deepl Writing Assistant is suggesting. Practical: If there are several suggested changes, for example to different synonyms of a word, further alternatives are displayed in small font below
Small weaknesses in nominal style and adjectives
The AI of the Deepl writing assistant “pays attention” to different aspects of the written texts. It highlights spelling mistakes and missing commas as well as colloquial phrases and expressions and sentences that are too long or synonyms for certain words.
- My experience: Grammatical errors are recognized and corrected with a high degree of reliability. Typos are also identified and corrected. The AI is also reliable when it comes to long and convoluted sentences and awkward formulations. Here, Deepl’s writing assistant splits long sentences into several short ones and simplifies statements.
- In the nominal style, which is often not so popular, there are only tentative changes. “The police pursued the fugitives until midnight” was accepted here instead of suggesting “The police pursued the fugitive until midnight”.
- Deepl also sometimes accepts superfluous adjectives or even gives a completely incorrect alternative. As an example sentence, I have entered the following text, which is deliberately poorly worded and riddled with errors: “Salmon mostly live in the temperate to arctic, coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean and live in the blue sea during their growth phase. “
- This is what Deepl made of it: “The salmon lives mainly in the temperate to arctic, coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It spends its growth phase in the Blue Sea. “
- Positively, the sentence has been divided into two sentences. Deepl has also done a lot right grammatically. On the other hand, it is unfavorable that the writing assistant did not remove the superfluous adjective “blue” before sea, but instead made the wrong variant “in the blue sea” from “in the blue sea”. Because of the “in”, the AI assumed that “blue” had to be substantivized. The sea behind it was apparently completely “ignored.”
- Conclusion: For a free AI tool that can be used quickly and easily in the browser and therefore without any registration, the Deepl text assistant does a decent job. The tool still has some minor and major flaws. But here too, the AI will probably continue to develop over time
