Giuseppe Garibaldi by Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg : Difficulty Assessment for Swedish Learners

How difficult is Giuseppe Garibaldi for Swedish learners? We have performed multiple tests on its full text (freely available here) of approximately 110,072, crunched all the numbers for you and present the results below.

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Difficulty Assessment Summary

We have estimated Giuseppe Garibaldi to have a difficulty score of 67. Here're its scores:

Measure Score
easy difficult (1 - 100)
Overall Difficulty 67% 67
Vocabulary Difficulty 70% 70
Grammatical Difficulty 64% 64

Vocabulary Difficulty: Breakdown

70%

Vocabulary difficulty: 70%

This score has been calculated based on frequency vocabulary (the top most frequently used words in Swedish). It combines various measures of Giuseppe Garibaldi'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 Giuseppe Garibaldi:

Vocabulary difficulty breakdown for Giuseppe Garibaldi: a test for Swedish top frequency vocabulary

We have also calculated the following approximate data on the vocabulary in Giuseppe Garibaldi:

Measure Score
Measure Score
Number of words 110,072
Number of unique words 16,232
Number of recognized words for names/places/other entities 7,470
Number of very rare non-entity words 6,048
Number of sentences 15,564
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 15,907 words (where all the forms of the word are still counted as unique words) in Swedish to be able to read Giuseppe Garibaldi without a dictionary and fully understand it.

Grammatical Difficulty: Breakdown

64%

Grammatical difficulty: 64%

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) 0.147467
Root type/Token Ratio (RTTR) 0.00000133973
Corrected type/Token Ratio (CTTR) 0.000000669867
MTLD Index 80
HDD Index 69
Yule's I Index 83
Lexical Diversity Index (MTLD + HD-D + Yule's I) 78

The type-token ratio (TTR) of Giuseppe Garibaldi is 0.147467. 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 16,232, while the number of words is 110,072, so the TTR is 16,232 / 110,072 = 0.147467. 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, 16,232 / (110,072 * 110,072) = 0.00000133973), while in CTTR, it is divided by a square of the number of words, multiplied twice 16,232 / 2 * (110,072 * 110,072) = 0.000000669867). 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 78 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 64.

Other Information about Giuseppe Garibaldi by Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg

We provide you a sample of the text below, however, the full text of the Giuseppe Garibaldi is also available free of charge on our website.

Sample of text:

Jag tror ännu, att det är möjligt att rädda situationen. Hjälp mig att med er militära verksamhet och edert inflytande genomföra mina planer. Låtom oss undvika alla förvecklingar och låtom oss i af vaktan på fientligheternas förnyade utbrott visa oss såsom "republikaner, hvilka förstå att praktiskt förverkliga sin politik.» -- -- -- Vapenstilleståndet blef emellertid förlängdt och kriget kunde anses slut, ehuru preliminärfreden först slöts den 26 februari i Versailles och stadfästes i Frankfurt den 11 maj. Den 12 februari sammanträdde den nya nationalförsamlingen i Bordeaux. Garibaldi hade af tre departement och dessutom af staden Paris blifvit vald till deputerad, och han begaf sig nu till Bordeaux för att nedlägga sin befattning både såsom sådan och såsom fransk general. ...

Top most frequently used words in Giuseppe Garibaldi by Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg*

Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
1 och 3,525 3.2%
2 att 2,264 2.06%
3 af 1,895 1.72%
4 till 1,694 1.54%
5 han 1,571 1.43%
6 den 1,497 1.36%
7 en 1,474 1.34%
8 som 1,331 1.21%
9 med 1,194 1.08%
10 för 1,159 1.05%
11 Garibaldi 1,112 1.01%
12 sig 1,043 0.95%
13 de 1,038 0.94%
14 det 938 0.85%
15 937 0.85%
16 hans 724 0.66%
17 var 702 0.64%
18 ett 640 0.58%
19 sin 630 0.57%
20 honom 619 0.56%
21 från 599 0.54%
22 hade 569 0.52%
23 ej 461 0.42%
24 om 451 0.41%
25 vid 426 0.39%
26 man 410 0.37%
27 under 409 0.37%
28 alla 391 0.36%
29 sina 390 0.35%
30 jag 389 0.35%
31 denna 367 0.33%
32 skulle 332 0.3%
33 är 321 0.29%
34 313 0.28%
35 Garibaldis 308 0.28%
36 öfver 306 0.28%
37 men 285 0.26%
38 sitt 275 0.25%
39 detta 270 0.25%
40 266 0.24%
41 nu 249 0.23%
42 mot 228 0.21%
43 blef 219 0.2%
44 mig 216 0.2%
45 dock 209 0.19%
46 hela 205 0.19%
47 dem 203 0.18%
48 där 198 0.18%
49 dessa 190 0.17%
50 Italien 187 0.17%
51 genom 186 0.17%
52 har 186 0.17%
53 endast 185 0.17%
54 voro 180 0.16%
55 åt 180 0.16%
56 efter 179 0.16%
57 icke 177 0.16%
58 eller 174 0.16%
59 allt 173 0.16%
60 än 167 0.15%
61 ännu 166 0.15%
62 utan 166 0.15%
63 hvilken 163 0.15%
64 general 162 0.15%
65 samt 159 0.14%
66 kunde 157 0.14%
67 emot 152 0.14%
68 italienska 149 0.14%
69 hvilka 145 0.13%
70 sedan 142 0.13%
71 hafva 142 0.13%
72 såsom 142 0.13%
73 Italiens 141 0.13%
74 vi 140 0.13%
75 andra 139 0.13%
76 äfven 137 0.12%
77 dess 137 0.12%
78 Rom 131 0.12%
79 staden 130 0.12%
80 lät 122 0.11%
81 min 120 0.11%
82 själf 120 0.11%
83 blifvit 114 0.1%
84 män 113 0.1%
85 redan 113 0.1%
86 måste 111 0.1%
87 stora 111 0.1%
88 åter 110 0.1%
89 här 109 0.1%
90 skall 108 0.1%
91 denne 107 0.1%
92 vara 106 0.1%
93 emellertid 106 0.1%
94 mycket 103 0.09%
95 Caprera 103 0.09%
96 någon 102 0.09%
97 första 101 0.09%
98 dag 100 0.09%
99 stor 100 0.09%
100 hon 100 0.09%
101 tid 99 0.09%
102 oss 96 0.09%
103 Neapel 95 0.09%
104 samma 95 0.09%
105 hvars 94 0.09%
106 några 94 0.09%
107 er 93 0.08%
108 hvarje 90 0.08%
109 gång 90 0.08%
110 göra 89 0.08%
111 Victor 89 0.08%
112 omkring 89 0.08%
113 också 88 0.08%
114 lilla 87 0.08%
115 fienden 85 0.08%
116 följande 84 0.08%
117 genast 83 0.08%
118 folk 82 0.07%
119 mellan 82 0.07%
120 81 0.07%
121 deras 80 0.07%
122 kom 80 0.07%
123 vänner 79 0.07%
124 mera 79 0.07%
125 bref 79 0.07%
126 upp 77 0.07%
127 aldrig 77 0.07%
128 kunna 77 0.07%
129 henne 77 0.07%
130 gjorde 76 0.07%
131 år 76 0.07%
132 hvilket 76 0.07%
133 Palermo 76 0.07%
134 ut 76 0.07%
135 inom 76 0.07%
136 San 75 0.07%
137 därför 75 0.07%
138 namn 74 0.07%
139 regeringen 74 0.07%
140 bland 74 0.07%
141 alltid 74 0.07%
142 båda 73 0.07%
143 därefter 73 0.07%
144 franska 72 0.07%
145 vapen 72 0.07%
146 mitt 72 0.07%
147 när 72 0.07%
148 sista 72 0.07%
149 något 71 0.06%
150 flera 71 0.06%
151 ord 70 0.06%
152 ville 70 0.06%
153 hvad 70 0.06%
154 in 70 0.06%
155 del 70 0.06%
156 Anita 69 0.06%
157 frivilliga 69 0.06%
158 två 68 0.06%
159 komma 67 0.06%
160 konungen 67 0.06%
161 lif 66 0.06%
162 många 66 0.06%
163 mina 65 0.06%
164 enda 65 0.06%
165 Emanuel 65 0.06%
166 kungliga 65 0.06%
167 nämligen 65 0.06%
168 började 65 0.06%
169 ur 65 0.06%
170 stod 65 0.06%
171 land 65 0.06%
172 sade 65 0.06%
173 skepp 64 0.06%
174 spetsen 64 0.06%
175 annan 64 0.06%
176 erhöll 64 0.06%
177 helt 64 0.06%
178 enär 63 0.06%
179 äro 63 0.06%
180 lyckades 63 0.06%
181 striden 62 0.06%
182 barn 62 0.06%

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 Giuseppe Garibaldi by Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg

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.