dictionary/spell-checking q (need two diff languages)

[maya90]

hi,

my MacBook Pro is set to English U.S., but now I live in South America, and very often when am in MS Word (or some other app, like my email app, Dreamweaver, etc) I need to spell-check in Spanish...

ideally I would like for when I go to spell-check that I'm given a choice betw spellchecking in English or Spanish.. is it possible to set it up like this? w/o having to change the language setting for the whole computer every time?

I looked into downloading a free Spanish dictionary, but most seem to be focused on translating.. for example
http://en.softonic.com/s/free-spanish-dictionary-download:mac

I just need it for spell-checking, nothing else.. am on mac os 10.6.8.. would appreciate suggestions as to how to go about this (can't purchase a dictionary, would have to be a free solution..)

thank you....

 

[maya90]

and:

when I go to Dictionary app I don't have a choice of languages, like it appears in this screenshot..
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-expanding-apple-dictionary-mac-only/

mine only has English options.... (wikipedia, Thesaurus, Oxford, Apple dictionary.... and, incredibly, three Japanese dictionaries....;-) that's it...

thank you...

 

[DeltaMac]

Not sure if this will be completely helpful for you - but - your system will automatically spell check, and will sense what language you are typing.
For your Snow Leopard system, check in your System Preferences, then Language & Text pane. Change the "Spelling" to Automatic by Language.
There's a setup at the bottom of the drop down, where you can make sure that both English and Spanish are provided in the language selection.
Anyway - your system can sense the language, and will spell check within that language.
That is system-wide, but not in every app, such as Microsoft Word. That has its own spell check, and includes other language spellcheck dictionaries. You just need to make sure that Spanish is one of the those available in Word preferences, Spelling and Grammar, Dictionaries. I think the difference in Word means that you have to select some text that you need to spell check, and choose the Dictionary for the spell-check language.
No need to do that in Text Edit, or most other built-in OS X apps. Anything that can use the system spell check, should also use the automatic setting for the language.

(The Dictionary app does not provide the spell-check function. Go to your System Preferences/Language & Text pane to change spellcheck settings, and see what languages are supported by spellcheck.)