How do I prevent my iPhone from wrongly auto-correcting a specific word?

Question

When I'm writing text in Danish, the iPhone always auto-corrects foto into FOTO which is immensely annoying. How can I prevent that specific suggestion from ever showing up again?
This is iOS version 4.2.1.

First I thought that it was matching it with an entry in my address book, but there is no contact with "FOTO" in any of the name fields. I'm using several languages, and the bad replacement only shows in Danish and not in German and not in English. I haven't tested other languages.

Because my PC with iTunes is not working well, I'd appreciate suggestions different from "try upgrading iOS it might help" unless that is a proven fix. I don't want to have to upgrade the phone unless really, really necessary.

Update:

1. As noted in an answer's comment, I don't want to turn off the autocorrect -- I just want it to work right. Thanks.
2. Resetting the keyboard dictionary didn't help.

Answer 1

Go into the keyboard settings and add a shortcut for the corrected spelling of the word. I had to do this with my daughter's name, as every time I spelled it, it would come out in capitals. You can just use a part of the word and it can auto spell the word for you, or you can spell it with a different capitalization and save the corrected version the other way.

If you need to use the first part of the word it may not work. Don't really know, but it worked for me ;-)

Answer 2

I had the same problem that it always corrected a word 'support' to 'SUPPORT' I typed to capitals despite resetting my dictionary on multiple occasions.

I searched in spotlight for 'SUPPORT' and discovered that I had the word 'SUPPORT' as part of a contacts name. I corrected this to 'support' and then this reset the dictionary again for good measure and this fixed the problem completely.

Answer 3

iPhone seems to remember your choice when you dismiss an autocorrection in Safari. If that doesn't work for you, you can always take the nuclear option and disable autocorrection altogether: Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Auto-Correction (eller Indstillinger -> Generelt -> Tastatur -> Automatisk rettelse hvis du benytter dansk på din iPhone)

Answer 4

You can try reseting the keyboard dictionary by going to:

Settings –> General –> Reset –> Reset Keyboard Dictionary

Warning before you try this - this will erase all of the auto correct entries you have added to the dictionary since you got the phone. But I've had success in doing this when it kept auto correcting as to a's.

Answer 5

Although this is a super-old question, I thought I'd add an update for what has worked for me in iOS8, as the autocorrect seems to have become 10 times more annoying: constantly changing Christmas to CHRISTMAS and my name (Lawrie) to - inexplicably - 'lAwrie'.

Open up Notes and type the word you want that autocorrect keeps screwing up (in my case, Christmas). As you're typing, it may suggest the correct spelling word on either side of the autocorrect suggestion, or have the 'literal' word you're typing in quotes. Select the one you want. Now do this about 3 times. You should find that, by the third or fourth time, it won't try to all-caps your word, or randomly throw capital letters in the middle of your name. After that, it should autocorrect the word correctly every time, and there's no need to wipe your dictionary.

Note: The inline autocorrect has changed in iOS8 and is now part of the autosuggestions bar, below the typing area. If you don't see it when you're typing, there should be a thin grey bar with a white line in the centre - flick that up and you'll see it. When it's going to autocorrect a word for you, it's highlighted in blue; otherwise it's just a suggestion.

Answer 6

Type the word you want e.g. Christmas. It will correct to CHRISTMAS. Hold down on the word and choose the option 'define' and choose 'Christmas' and it will probably not auto-capitalize the whole word again.