Ask HN: Review my weekend project - Phras.in
My mother tongue is italian, and as you can imagine, it's always been a bit frustrating for me to write in proper English, whether I was writing an important email or a forum post.
Of course you have spell checkers and dictionaries online, and they can help you check the text grammar, but in some cases you have to 'trust your ear' in order to estabilish if a phrase sounds good, and there's a possibility that your ear isn't as good as you think. I'm sure people who dosen't speak english as their first language knows what I'm talking about.
One thing that I find myself doing very often when I have nobody to proofread a text for me is to check google because I'm dubious about a phrase or expression, and I want to use the most common one, the one the better fits the context.
Usually I have to decide between two options I have in mind, so I google the first phrase, note the number of results, then I google the second phrase and check the results again to have my proof of popularity.
This is pretty much what Phras.in does, but it's quicker than using google and checks both phrases in one shot, try it.
You can also get results typing the phrases in the address bar, like this:
http://phras.in/having few beers/having a few beers
I know it's no rocket science, there isn't much technical work in there, but making Phras.in was a fun way to get back to web development and hopefully it will made my everyday life a tiny bit easier, and I hope you'll make use of it too.
Please, let me know what you think.