Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter by Maria Nyström : Difficulty Assessment for Swedish Learners

How difficult is Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter for Swedish learners? We have performed multiple tests on its full text (freely available here) of approximately 6,487, crunched all the numbers for you and present the results below.

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Difficulty Assessment Summary

We have estimated Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter to have a difficulty score of 46. Here're its scores:

Measure Score
easy difficult (1 - 100)
Overall Difficulty 46% 46
Vocabulary Difficulty 57% 57
Grammatical Difficulty 35% 35

Vocabulary Difficulty: Breakdown

57%

Vocabulary difficulty: 57%

This score has been calculated based on frequency vocabulary (the top most frequently used words in Swedish). It combines various measures of Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter'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 Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter:

Vocabulary difficulty breakdown for Fästmöprovet  - Folklivsbild i två akter: a test for Swedish top frequency vocabulary

We have also calculated the following approximate data on the vocabulary in Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter:

Measure Score
Measure Score
Number of words 6,487
Number of unique words 1,454
Number of recognized words for names/places/other entities 351
Number of very rare non-entity words 185
Number of sentences 1,242
Average number of words/sentence 5

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 1,424 words (where all the forms of the word are still counted as unique words) in Swedish to be able to read Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter without a dictionary and fully understand it.

Grammatical Difficulty: Breakdown

35%

Grammatical difficulty: 35%

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 1
Coleman-Liau Index 3
Type/Token Ratio (TTR) 0.224141
Root type/Token Ratio (RTTR) 0.0000345523
Corrected type/Token Ratio (CTTR) 0.0000172761
MTLD Index 45
HDD Index 55
Yule's I Index 57
Lexical Diversity Index (MTLD + HD-D + Yule's I) 53

The type-token ratio (TTR) of Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter is 0.224141. 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 1,454, while the number of words is 6,487, so the TTR is 1,454 / 6,487 = 0.224141. 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, 1,454 / (6,487 * 6,487) = 0.0000345523), while in CTTR, it is divided by a square of the number of words, multiplied twice 1,454 / 2 * (6,487 * 6,487) = 0.0000172761). 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 1, making it understandable for 1-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 53 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 35.

Other Information about Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter by Maria Nyström

We provide you a sample of the text below, however, the full text of the Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter is also available free of charge on our website.

Sample of text:

Värd. (oroligt). Slå fort i kaffe åt henne, Elsa, det är farligt att reta det där folket. Elsa (slår i och räcker henne koppen). Här är starkt och gott kaffe. Drick ni raskt nu, så slår jag en kopp till. Vi måste skynda litet för vi hava sysslor. Zig. Se, det här är annan jänta, det. Hon får nog friare, hon. (Medan hon pratar, tömmer hon ivrigt några koppar, slutligen tittar hon i sumpen på botten av koppen). Jo, jo, jag ser nog. Här komma friare, fina friare, ...

Top most frequently used words in Fästmöprovet - Folklivsbild i två akter by Maria Nyström*

Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
1 och 188 2.9%
2 det 186 2.87%
3 är 159 2.45%
4 att 154 2.37%
5 jag 132 2.03%
6 117 1.8%
7 du 111 1.71%
8 103 1.59%
9 inte 93 1.43%
10 Hilda 90 1.39%
11 den 75 1.16%
12 Elsa 75 1.16%
13 en 73 1.13%
14 som 72 1.11%
15 med 71 1.09%
16 Janne 69 1.06%
17 nu 58 0.89%
18 Värd 56 0.86%
19 hon 55 0.85%
20 har 54 0.83%
21 om 53 0.82%
22 för 46 0.71%
23 till 42 0.65%
24 där 42 0.65%
25 kan 41 0.63%
26 man 41 0.63%
27 skall 38 0.59%
28 nog 37 0.57%
29 här 37 0.57%
30 bara 36 0.55%
31 åt 35 0.54%
32 när 35 0.54%
33 Gr 33 0.51%
34 vara 32 0.49%
35 hava 26 0.4%
36 vi 26 0.4%
37 ett 25 0.39%
38 25 0.39%
39 sig 25 0.39%
40 men 25 0.39%
41 riktigt 23 0.35%
42 dig 23 0.35%
43 får 22 0.34%
44 skulle 22 0.34%
45 var 21 0.32%
46 mig 20 0.31%
47 de 20 0.31%
48 ju 20 0.31%
49 se 20 0.31%
50 mor 19 0.29%
51 ser 19 0.29%
52 också 19 0.29%
53 väl 19 0.29%
54 blir 18 0.28%
55 bra 18 0.28%
56 komma 18 0.28%
57 17 0.26%
58 kaffe 17 0.26%
59 Grannas 17 0.26%
60 17 0.26%
61 henne 17 0.26%
62 17 0.26%
63 efter 16 0.25%
64 ni 16 0.25%
65 ut 15 0.23%
66 vad 15 0.23%
67 av 15 0.23%
68 någon 15 0.23%
69 litet 15 0.23%
70 själv 15 0.23%
71 allt 15 0.23%
72 än 14 0.22%
73 visst 14 0.22%
74 fram 13 0.2%
75 vet 13 0.2%
76 sådant 13 0.2%
77 huru 12 0.18%
78 sedan 12 0.18%
79 ändå 12 0.18%
80 vill 12 0.18%
81 min 12 0.18%
82 just 12 0.18%
83 tid 11 0.17%
84 scenen 11 0.17%
85 måste 11 0.17%
86 taga 11 0.17%
87 annat 11 0.17%
88 eller 10 0.15%
89 hela 10 0.15%
90 han 10 0.15%
91 dag 10 0.15%
92 in 10 0.15%
93 Kanske 10 0.15%
94 upp 10 0.15%
95 tjänsteflicka 10 0.15%
96 annan 10 0.15%
97 50 10 0.15%
98 arbete 9 0.14%
99 går 9 0.14%
100 andra 9 0.14%
101 utan 9 0.14%
102 9 0.14%
103 fast 9 0.14%
104 aldrig 9 0.14%
105 säger 9 0.14%
106 Hildas 9 0.14%
107 Nej 9 0.14%
108 sitter 9 0.14%
109 friare 9 0.14%
110 tycker 9 0.14%
111 tror 9 0.14%
112 kommer 9 0.14%
113 Artur 8 0.12%
114 tiden 8 0.12%
115 över 8 0.12%
116 borde 8 0.12%
117 hänger 8 0.12%
118 kunde 8 0.12%
119 alltid 8 0.12%
120 oj 8 0.12%
121 tag 8 0.12%
122 spinner 8 0.12%
123 Jo 8 0.12%
124 fått 8 0.12%
125 Zig 8 0.12%
126 något 8 0.12%
127 pers 8 0.12%
128 hennes 8 0.12%
129 dagen 8 0.12%
130 vid 8 0.12%
131 sett 7 0.11%
132 undan 7 0.11%
133 vem 7 0.11%
134 äro 7 0.11%
135 hade 7 0.11%
136 varandra 7 0.11%
137 gård 7 0.11%
138 gården 7 0.11%
139 färdigt 7 0.11%
140 står 7 0.11%
141 alla 7 0.11%
142 korna 7 0.11%
143 göra 7 0.11%
144 brudgumsskjortan 7 0.11%
145 spunnit 7 0.11%
146 ännu 7 0.11%
147 detsamma 7 0.11%
148 från 7 0.11%
149 tänker 7 0.11%
150 kor 7 0.11%
151 tar 7 0.11%
152 sitt 6 0.09%
153 byrån 6 0.09%
154 veta 6 0.09%
155 friarn 6 0.09%
156 vårt 6 0.09%
157 mera 6 0.09%
158 sådan 6 0.09%
159 moster 6 0.09%
160 spinna 6 0.09%
161 skola 6 0.09%
162 dem 6 0.09%
163 ihop 6 0.09%
164 ex 6 0.09%
165 förra 6 0.09%
166 visa 6 0.09%
167 redan 6 0.09%
168 sats 6 0.09%
169 sin 6 0.09%
170 köpa 6 0.09%
171 lika 6 0.09%
172 vore 5 0.08%
173 spår 5 0.08%

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 Fästmöprovet  - Folklivsbild i två akter by Maria Nyström

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.