Editing Entries in the T9 Dictionary
My buddy Zach over at SiMo has just written a brief tutorial on how to reset your T9 dictionary on S60 devices if you happen to accidentally set an uncommon word as a default for a commonly used button combination. In his example, “yes” was accidentally changed to “wep” on his phone during a conversation with someone about networking.
If you’re like me and have TONS of custom words in your T9 dictionary, there’s an alternative to losing all of those custom entries and starting from scratch. There’s a different way to do it depending on if you’re using a FP0 or FP1 device, but I’m going to explain both. 
For FP0 devices,
-Open a blank message of any kind and skip down to the message field
-Type the word that appears incorrectly.
-Press the “+” key (”*”) until you’re presented with the “Spell” option.
-Type out the correct word using TAP and press “Ok” when you’re finished.
-Repeat this several times until the correct word has been defaulted back to that button combination. I’ve seen results in as little as 2 cycles, though you may have to do it for more, depending on how frequently the incorrect word is used.
For FP1 devices,
-Open a blank text message and skip down to the message field, just like above.
-Type the word that appears incorrectly.
-Press the “+” key (”*”) until the correct word appears (in my example, it takes 3 presses to go from “os” to “or”).
-Press the “Space” key (”_”/”0″) and repeat. This method usually takes a couple more corrections, but it definitely takes less time.
Should either of these methods not work for you, the best alternative would be what Zach posted and start all over again. I’ve reset mine a couple different times due to having so many incorrect words that it wouldn’t even be worth the time to try the methods mentioned above.
It’s not quite as easy to edit the dictionary as it would be on a Blackberry, but at least there’s an option to fix it when it gets screws up accidentally.
Very cool Jonny – nice to have another option as I do agree that it’s a PIA to reset the whole dictionary each time this happens. I actually tried to reteach a word to my phone but gave up after two tries. I should have stuck with it!
Zach
October 9, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Thanks so much for this! No more will my phone replace ‘you’ with’Wmt!’
Stefan
November 26, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Thanks for the tip. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to reverse engineer the format of the c:\Predic\*.dat file and write an editor for it? In fact someone at Nokia must have already made such a tool. Share it with us, Nokia, please?
Tamlyn
November 29, 2007 at 11:43 am
I’ve tried both methods, to no avail
I’m using an N95 8gb, whichever version’s generally available in the UK. I’ve somehow managed to make my phone default to “it’r” instead of “it’s” and it’s driving me freaking insane!
Chris
January 30, 2008 at 3:13 pm
The 8gb seems to have some wonky firmware. Certain themes don’t display correctly, 3rd party screensavers don’t work as well, and now this which doesn’t surprise me.
Keep trying the method for FP1 devices. It has to work eventually?
Jonathan Bruha
January 30, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Thanks Jonny! Just sorted out my N95. It now says my instead of oz. It was driving me nuts and I couldn’t delete the .dat file (no 3rd party file browser installed yet). That may be the next thing to do when I get home though.
Cheers!
Chris
Chris (a different one)
February 10, 2008 at 7:03 pm
that second option worked for me… thanks heaps. this prob has been bothering me for a while now no longer will my “and” come out as “aof”
thanks bro
Boss
April 16, 2008 at 6:38 am
Nice one mate, this has been annoying me for ages, every time I spell ‘you’ I get ‘yot’! Took about 15 times to write it but got there eventually!
Reece
May 9, 2008 at 10:35 am
I get yot instead of you as well. Where did that come from? Mine’s an N82 from the far east. Still haven’t fixed it, but it’s something to kill time on the train home!
Mike
June 23, 2008 at 4:02 pm
thanks for a really useful tip. however, i seem to be too stupid to make it work. i have 2 questions that might help me – how do i know if my N95 is FPO or FP1, and do i have to close the text window each time, or can i just delete/backspac the word and start again?
much obligd if anyone answers this…
jem
September 29, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Thank you so much! I’ve had so many words annoying me! “pde” instead of “see”, and oddly, “you.re” instead of “you’re”. I have an N95 and the second method worked for me. I had to type i some words about 10 times but be assured it does work! You don’t close the text window each time, you just press space and keep typing and correcting the word with *. Hope this helps Jem.
Megan
October 23, 2008 at 1:55 am
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October 28, 2008 at 6:39 pm
it works! thanks megan – i had to type in ‘the’ about 100 times, but now it doesnt say ‘tif’. hurrah!!
jem
November 12, 2008 at 11:53 am
Thank you so much – had to do it about 40 times but it worked!
Sandra
January 2, 2009 at 4:33 pm
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January 9, 2009 at 7:03 pm
thanks mate, i was sick of Yot and 20f
Jonty MacDonald
May 13, 2009 at 4:51 pm
no more “I LOVE YOV”.. my girlfriend was getting worried. Thanks.
Dene
June 10, 2009 at 4:24 am