Literature analysis for language learners: Biografiska studier från skilda tider by Hugo Fröding

Biografiska studier från skilda tider by Hugo Fröding : Difficulty Assessment for Swedish Learners

How difficult is Biografiska studier från skilda tider for Swedish learners? We have performed multiple tests on its full text (freely available here) of approximately 59,681, crunched all the numbers for you and present the results below.

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Difficulty Assessment Summary

We have estimated Biografiska studier från skilda tider to have a difficulty score of 80. Here're its scores:

Measure Score
easy difficult (1 - 100)
Overall Difficulty 80% 80
Vocabulary Difficulty 93% 93
Grammatical Difficulty 67% 67

Vocabulary Difficulty: Breakdown

93%

Vocabulary difficulty: 93%

This score has been calculated based on frequency vocabulary (the top most frequently used words in Swedish). It combines various measures of Biografiska studier från skilda tider's text analyzed in terms of frequency vocabulary: a plain vocabulary score, frequency-weighted vocabulary score, banded frequency vocabulary scores based on vocabulary of the text falling in the top 1,000 or 2,000 most frequent words, etc. Here's a further breakdown of how often the top most frequently used words in Swedish appear in the full text of Biografiska studier från skilda tider:

Vocabulary difficulty breakdown for Biografiska studier från skilda tider: a test for Swedish top frequency vocabulary

We have also calculated the following approximate data on the vocabulary in Biografiska studier från skilda tider:

Measure Score
Measure Score
Number of words 59,681
Number of unique words 12,672
Number of recognized words for names/places/other entities 3,505
Number of very rare non-entity words 5,169
Number of sentences 8,636
Average number of words/sentence 7

There is some research suggesting that that you need to know about 98% of a text's vocabulary in order to be able to infer the meaning of unknown words when reading. If true, this means that you would need to know around 12,418 words (where all the forms of the word are still counted as unique words) in Swedish to be able to read Biografiska studier från skilda tider without a dictionary and fully understand it.

Grammatical Difficulty: Breakdown

67%

Grammatical difficulty: 67%

Here is the further grammatical comparison on this text. You can find an explanation of all these scores below.

Measure Score
Measure Score
Automated Readability Index 7
Coleman-Liau Index 11
Type/Token Ratio (TTR) 0.212329
Root type/Token Ratio (RTTR) 0.00000355773
Corrected type/Token Ratio (CTTR) 0.00000177886
MTLD Index 84
HDD Index 71
Yule's I Index 89
Lexical Diversity Index (MTLD + HD-D + Yule's I) 81

The type-token ratio (TTR) of Biografiska studier från skilda tider is 0.212329. The TTR is the most basic measure of lexical diversity. To calculate it, we divide the number of unique words by the number of words in the text. For example, for this text, the number of unique words is 12,672, while the number of words is 59,681, so the TTR is 12,672 / 59,681 = 0.212329. However, the TTR is a very crude measure, as it is extremely dependent on text length. The longer the text, the lower the TTR is usually going to be, since common words tend to often repeat. Especially since the number of words in this text is more than 1,000, the TTR is not likely to give an accurate measure.

The root type-token ratio (RTTR) and corrected type-token ratio (CTTR) are measures which were suggested by researchers to partially address the problem of TTR's variance on text length. In the RTTR, the number of unique words is divided by a square of the number of words (therefore, 12,672 / (59,681 * 59,681) = 0.00000355773), while in CTTR, it is divided by a square of the number of words, multiplied twice 12,672 / 2 * (59,681 * 59,681) = 0.00000177886). However, these measures are not as easily readable, and also there is a growing body of research asserting that CTTR and RTTR do not effectively address the problems of text length. Therefore, while we do provide the full text's TTR, RTTR and CTTR on this page, these fiqures do not form part of our final calculations.

The Automated Readability Index (ARI) is one readability measure that has been developed by researchers over the years. The formula for calculating the ARI is as follows:
Formula for calculating the Automated Readability Index

The ARI should compute a reading level approximately corresponding to the reader's grade level (assuming the reader undertakes formal education). Thus, for example, a value of 1 is kindergarten level, while a value of 12 or 13 is the last year of school, and 14 is a sophomore at college. The current ARI of this text is 7, making it understandable for 7-grade students at their expected level of education.

The Coleman Liau Index (CLI) is a similar index designed by Meri Coleman and T. L. Liau, and it is supposed to compute the grade level of the reader (thus, for example, sophomore level material would be around grade 14, or year 14 of formal education, while kindergarten / primary school level material would be close to grade 1 in the CLI). The CLI is usually slightly higher than the ARI. The CLI is computed with this formula:
Formula for calculating the Coleman-Liau Readability Index

It is notable that other indexes exist, such as the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease, Gunning-Fog Score, and others, but we have chosen not to include them, since, contrary to the ARI and CLI, such other indexes are based on a syllable count and therefore arguably only work for English and not Swedish.

We compute a further compound lexical diversity index, which should range from 1 to a 100 (with the standard deviation being around 10, and its average value being around 50) - it is 81 in the present case. The compound lexical diversity index consists of the following indexes, averaged out (and also provided in the table above):

  • the Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) index - a measure which is based on computing the TTR for increasingly larger parts of the text until the TTR drops below a certain threshold point (around 0.7 in our case) - in which case, the TTR is reset, and the overall counter is increased; the counter is at the end divided by the number of words in text; as a result, the MTLD does not significantly vary by text length;
  • the Yule's I index (based on Yule's K characteristic inverted) - an index based on the work of the statistician G.U. Yule, who published his index of Frequency Vocabulary in his paper "The statistical study of literary vocabulary"; Yule's I takes into account the number of words in the text, and a compound summed measure of word frequency;
  • the Hypergeometric Distribution D (HD-D) index (based on vocd) - an index which assesses the contribution of each word to the diversity of the text; to calculate such contributions, a hypergeometric distribution is used to compute probabilities of each word appearing in word samples extracted from the text; then such distributions are divided by sample sizes and added up;

Our overall measure of grammatical diversity is based on a combination of the compound lexical diversity index (which includes the MTLD, Yule's I and HD-D indexes), the ARI and CLI, all normalized and given certain weight. The score should normally range from 1 to 100. In this case, the score is 67.

Other Information about Biografiska studier från skilda tider by Hugo Fröding

We provide you a sample of the text below, however, the full text of the Biografiska studier från skilda tider is also available free of charge on our website.

Sample of text:

Och inte nog härmed, han erhöll äfven hyllningsed af sina undersåter, ehuru detta visserligen satt hårdt åt. Efter trenne dagars stridigheter förklarade sig nämligen ridderskapet och städerna äfvensom några få af domkapitlet villiga att gå denna ed, under det att de öfriga af domkapitlet anmälde sig skola inskicka sin ursäkt till rikskanslern. Rörande vasaättlingens regering i Osnabrück finna vi åtskilliga upplysningar i Geschichte des Hoch-stifts Osnabrück af C. Stüwe. Gifvet är dock, att den tyske lokalhistorikern ej är synnerligen välvilligt stämd mot den svenska ockupationen och dess män. Ejheller är det lätt att af hans framställning finna hvars och ...

Top most frequently used words in Biografiska studier från skilda tider by Hugo Fröding*

Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
1 och 1,584 2.65%
2 att 1,124 1.88%
3 af 1,045 1.75%
4 till 1,026 1.72%
5 den 879 1.47%
6 han 785 1.32%
7 som 756 1.27%
8 en 681 1.14%
9 med 618 1.04%
10 på 606 1.02%
11 för 576 0.97%
12 det 536 0.9%
13 ej 477 0.8%
14 sig 399 0.67%
15 ett 333 0.56%
16 om 329 0.55%
17 hans 322 0.54%
18 sin 308 0.52%
19 de 299 0.5%
20 man 298 0.5%
21 är 255 0.43%
22 detta 237 0.4%
23 denna 235 0.39%
24 skulle 222 0.37%
25 honom 220 0.37%
26 var 218 0.37%
27 så 216 0.36%
28 hon 215 0.36%
29 hade 211 0.35%
30 jag 209 0.35%
31 från 198 0.33%
32 eller 197 0.33%
33 vid 196 0.33%
34 under 192 0.32%
35 har 191 0.32%
36 efter 189 0.32%
37 hafva 184 0.31%
38 äfven 176 0.29%
39 hennes 149 0.25%
40 såsom 149 0.25%
41 men 147 0.25%
42 dock 144 0.24%
43 år 139 0.23%
44 utan 139 0.23%
45 varit 138 0.23%
46 någon 138 0.23%
47 bref 137 0.23%
48 dessa 136 0.23%
49 kan 129 0.22%
50 sitt 128 0.21%
51 då 127 0.21%
52 nu 127 0.21%
53 än 124 0.21%
54 andra 119 0.2%
55 Gustaf 114 0.19%
56 kunde 114 0.19%
57 något 111 0.19%
58 herr 108 0.18%
59 alla 107 0.18%
60 sina 106 0.18%
61 genom 100 0.17%
62 allt 99 0.17%
63 där 99 0.17%
64 mig 93 0.16%
65 Gustafsson 92 0.15%
66 fru 88 0.15%
67 öfver 86 0.14%
68 denne 86 0.14%
69 samma 85 0.14%
70 själf 84 0.14%
71 samt 84 0.14%
72 vi 82 0.14%
73 hvad 79 0.13%
74 emellertid 77 0.13%
75 blifvit 76 0.13%
76 tid 75 0.13%
77 redan 75 0.13%
78 Margareta 74 0.12%
79 några 73 0.12%
80 svenska 72 0.12%
81 hvilken 71 0.12%
82 vara 70 0.12%
83 väl 69 0.12%
84 endast 69 0.12%
85 mycket 69 0.12%
86 henne 68 0.11%
87 mot 68 0.11%
88 dess 64 0.11%
89 annat 60 0.1%
90 ty 60 0.1%
91 första 59 0.1%
92 nämligen 59 0.1%
93 min 59 0.1%
94 sedan 58 0.1%
95 få 58 0.1%
96 tycks 58 0.1%
97 konungen 57 0.1%
98 måste 56 0.09%
99 här 56 0.09%
100 sätt 56 0.09%
101 inte 55 0.09%
102 grund 55 0.09%
103 hos 54 0.09%
104 enligt 52 0.09%
105 Fournier 52 0.09%
106 göra 52 0.09%
107 ännu 52 0.09%
108 Sverige 52 0.09%
109 ville 51 0.09%
110 Stockholm 50 0.08%
111 kunna 50 0.08%
112 namn 50 0.08%
113 följande 50 0.08%
114 mer 50 0.08%
115 stor 49 0.08%
116 egen 48 0.08%
117 kungl 48 0.08%
118 såväl 48 0.08%
119 uti 48 0.08%
120 Göteborg 47 0.08%
121 senare 47 0.08%
122 dem 47 0.08%
123 hvilket 47 0.08%
124 gång 47 0.08%
125 von 47 0.08%
126 vore 46 0.08%
127 mindre 45 0.08%
128 finner 45 0.08%
129 hela 45 0.08%
130 icke 44 0.07%
131 hvilka 44 0.07%
132 del 43 0.07%
133 nog 43 0.07%
134 annan 43 0.07%
135 par 42 0.07%
136 åt 42 0.07%
137 vardt 42 0.07%
138 särskildt 41 0.07%
139 skall 41 0.07%
140 ehuru 41 0.07%
141 båda 41 0.07%
142 död 41 0.07%
143 grefve 40 0.07%
144 dels 39 0.07%
145 således 38 0.06%
146 åter 38 0.06%
147 al 38 0.06%
148 Sahlgren 37 0.06%
149 ingen 37 0.06%
150 voro 37 0.06%
151 flera 37 0.06%
152 därför 37 0.06%
153 deras 36 0.06%
154 därpå 36 0.06%
155 början 36 0.06%
156 son 35 0.06%
157 förut 35 0.06%
158 tiden 35 0.06%
159 visserligen 35 0.06%
160 Wadman 35 0.06%
161 sida 35 0.06%
162 längre 34 0.06%
163 därefter 34 0.06%
164 kurfursten 33 0.06%
165 hvars 33 0.06%
166 nämnda 33 0.06%
167 tvenne 33 0.06%
168 finna 33 0.06%
169 slutligen 33 0.06%
170 konungens 33 0.06%
171 snart 32 0.05%
172 ock 32 0.05%
173 också 32 0.05%
174 enda 32 0.05%

This list excludes punctuation or single-letter words, also some different-case repeats of the same words.

If you think the text would be accessible to you, you can read it on our site (click on the cover to access):

Cover of Biografiska studier från skilda tider by Hugo Fröding

Other resources and languages

If you like this analysis, you should have a look at out our lists of Swedish short stories and Swedish books.

If you like literature as a means to learn languages - please take a look at our project Interlinear Books. We even have a Swedish Interlinear book available for purchase.