Teach iPhone AutoCorrect New Words By Repetition

If you’re annoyed the iPhone autocorrect dictionary still doesn’t know a word you use constantly, or you are constantly suggested the wrong word (what the duck?), you can easily teach iOS autocorrect new words by repeating them a few times in an app like Notes. The process is fairly simple, and it works universally for all iOS devices, and though you can do this process in just about any Apple app, it’s perhaps easiest in the aforementioned Notes application.

Here’s all you need to do to forcibly teach autocorrect a new word:

• Launch Notes app and create a new blank note
• Type the new word you want autocorrect to learn over and over again

This process of word repetition looks, well, repetitive, much like the following:

Yup, repetition is one of the ways to get the iOS autocorrect dictionary to recognize a word that it thinks is not a word, as a word. Typically by about the 5th or 6th consecutive time a new word has been typed you’ll start getting that word suggested by autocorrect.

Save some future hassle by repeating as necessary for other words, street names, unique names or spellings, acronyms, or whatever else you want suggested while typing. It’s helpful to do this in advance for words that are continuously messed up or autocorrected when they shouldn’t be.

Don’t worry if you decide to change your mind later, or if things are totally messed, because up you can always reset the autocorrect dictionary and start anew.

The end result? Your word(s) will now be taught, and autocorrect should stop inappropriately ‘correcting’ them with the word you do not want.

This works the same on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and on all versions of iOS, from iOS 5, 6, and yes, iOS 8 and 7. It’s worth mentioning that the latest versions of iOS also support another method to train autocorrect to stop correcting certain words indirectly by using Search and Safari, it’s a handy tip that’s word a read for those with the newest iOS versions. Note the difference, however: the repetition trick teaches a new word, whereas the search trick simply stops the correction of any given word.