Literature analysis for language learners: Nybyggarna i Canada by Frederick Marryat

Nybyggarna i Canada by Frederick Marryat : Difficulty Assessment for Swedish Learners

How difficult is Nybyggarna i Canada for Swedish learners? We have performed multiple tests on its full text (freely available here) of approximately 90,712, crunched all the numbers for you and present the results below.

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Difficulty Assessment Summary

We have estimated Nybyggarna i Canada to have a difficulty score of 53. Here're its scores:

Measure Score
easy difficult (1 - 100)
Overall Difficulty 53% 53
Vocabulary Difficulty 56% 56
Grammatical Difficulty 51% 51

Vocabulary Difficulty: Breakdown

56%

Vocabulary difficulty: 56%

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

Vocabulary difficulty breakdown for Nybyggarna i Canada: a test for Swedish top frequency vocabulary

We have also calculated the following approximate data on the vocabulary in Nybyggarna i Canada:

Measure Score
Measure Score
Number of words 90,712
Number of unique words 11,037
Number of recognized words for names/places/other entities 4,292
Number of very rare non-entity words 1,876
Number of sentences 14,066
Average number of words/sentence 6

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 10,816 words (where all the forms of the word are still counted as unique words) in Swedish to be able to read Nybyggarna i Canada without a dictionary and fully understand it.

Grammatical Difficulty: Breakdown

51%

Grammatical difficulty: 51%

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 4
Coleman-Liau Index 8
Type/Token Ratio (TTR) 0.121671
Root type/Token Ratio (RTTR) 0.00000134129
Corrected type/Token Ratio (CTTR) 0.000000670643
MTLD Index 60
HDD Index 65
Yule's I Index 72
Lexical Diversity Index (MTLD + HD-D + Yule's I) 66

The type-token ratio (TTR) of Nybyggarna i Canada is 0.121671. 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 11,037, while the number of words is 90,712, so the TTR is 11,037 / 90,712 = 0.121671. 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, 11,037 / (90,712 * 90,712) = 0.00000134129), while in CTTR, it is divided by a square of the number of words, multiplied twice 11,037 / 2 * (90,712 * 90,712) = 0.000000670643). 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 4, making it understandable for 4-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 66 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 51.

Other Information about Nybyggarna i Canada by Frederick Marryat

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

Sample of text:

Denna order hördes av en bland Pontiac"s hövdingar, som förstod engelska. Han utropade det till de övriga indianerna och skyndade bort från fartyget; de andra rödskinnen följde honom och rusade 89 T ned i sina kanoter eller simmade så fort de orkade bort från fartyget. Kaptenen drog fördel av vinden och anlände i trygghet till fästet, och sålunda blev garnisonen undsatt och fästningens invånare räddade från undergång genom denne ende mans mod. - Man säger, att Pontiac nu är död, åtminstone berättade Martin Super oss det. På vilket sätt dog han, kapten Sinclair? frågade mrs Campbell. ...

Top most frequently used words in Nybyggarna i Canada by Frederick Marryat*

Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
1 och 3,407 3.76%
2 att 2,691 2.97%
3 det 1,323 1.46%
4 en 1,313 1.45%
5 de 1,247 1.37%
6 till 1,081 1.19%
7 på 1,003 1.11%
8 som 1,000 1.1%
9 jag 946 1.04%
10 han 915 1.01%
11 av 913 1.01%
12 för 885 0.98%
13 med 882 0.97%
14 icke 870 0.96%
15 är 842 0.93%
16 sig 709 0.78%
17 om 689 0.76%
18 var 684 0.75%
19 hade 673 0.74%
20 den 673 0.74%
21 så 626 0.69%
22 vi 570 0.63%
23 Campbell 558 0.62%
24 ett 509 0.56%
25 skulle 498 0.55%
26 dem 457 0.5%
27 honom 450 0.5%
28 men 426 0.47%
29 ni 419 0.46%
30 Alfred 413 0.46%
31 Malachias 411 0.45%
32 mycket 403 0.44%
33 mr 371 0.41%
34 har 365 0.4%
35 skall 357 0.39%
36 sin 350 0.39%
37 sade 336 0.37%
38 nu 309 0.34%
39 hans 303 0.33%
40 mig 303 0.33%
41 oss 302 0.33%
42 svarade 293 0.32%
43 hava 292 0.32%
44 er 290 0.32%
45 Martin 289 0.32%
46 då 281 0.31%
47 efter 275 0.3%
48 från 269 0.3%
49 alla 258 0.28%
50 eller 255 0.28%
51 vara 235 0.26%
52 kapten 228 0.25%
53 vid 225 0.25%
54 bliva 222 0.24%
55 voro 220 0.24%
56 göra 217 0.24%
57 hon 216 0.24%
58 John 214 0.24%
59 kan 211 0.23%
60 mrs 209 0.23%
61 ty 207 0.23%
62 min 204 0.22%
63 blivit 204 0.22%
64 Sinclair 200 0.22%
65 under 197 0.22%
66 skola 194 0.21%
67 än 194 0.21%
68 sina 191 0.21%
69 kunde 181 0.2%
70 Emma 176 0.19%
71 du 175 0.19%
72 Mary 174 0.19%
73 få 173 0.19%
74 deras 173 0.19%
75 äro 167 0.18%
76 vad 167 0.18%
77 Percival 165 0.18%
78 åt 162 0.18%
79 kunna 161 0.18%
80 snart 161 0.18%
81 måste 161 0.18%
82 upp 160 0.18%
83 där 159 0.18%
84 ej 159 0.18%
85 när 159 0.18%
86 över 156 0.17%
87 detta 154 0.17%
88 utan 154 0.17%
89 sedan 152 0.17%
90 man 152 0.17%
91 sitt 148 0.16%
92 två 145 0.16%
93 gå 144 0.16%
94 emedan 143 0.16%
95 ut 139 0.15%
96 några 138 0.15%
97 sir 138 0.15%
98 blev 136 0.15%
99 henne 136 0.15%
100 andra 133 0.15%
101 någon 123 0.14%
102 här 123 0.14%
103 varit 121 0.13%
104 Ja 120 0.13%
105 stor 118 0.13%
106 vilket 112 0.12%
107 allt 109 0.12%
108 komma 109 0.12%
109 fästningen 107 0.12%
110 tid 106 0.12%
111 väl 106 0.12%
112 tror 103 0.11%
113 in 103 0.11%
114 ned 101 0.11%
115 genom 101 0.11%
116 vilken 99 0.11%
117 Henry 98 0.11%
118 se 98 0.11%
119 många 97 0.11%
120 denna 97 0.11%
121 åter 96 0.11%
122 mot 95 0.1%
123 hela 94 0.1%
124 även 94 0.1%
125 såsom 94 0.1%
126 Smultronblomman 93 0.1%
127 något 92 0.1%
128 mera 91 0.1%
129 verkligen 91 0.1%
130 vilka 89 0.1%
131 frågade 89 0.1%
132 därför 88 0.1%
133 kommer 88 0.1%
134 vår 87 0.1%
135 endast 87 0.1%
136 hur 86 0.09%
137 emellertid 86 0.09%
138 omkring 85 0.09%
139 tre 85 0.09%
140 taga 83 0.09%
141 gjorde 81 0.09%
142 dagar 80 0.09%
143 år 79 0.09%
144 nog 78 0.09%
145 tills 76 0.08%
146 hos 75 0.08%
147 ännu 75 0.08%
148 inte 74 0.08%
149 lika 73 0.08%
150 samma 73 0.08%
151 tillbaka 73 0.08%
152 dig 72 0.08%
153 våra 71 0.08%
154 rätt 71 0.08%
155 bort 70 0.08%
156 mitt 68 0.07%
157 annat 68 0.07%
158 blir 68 0.07%
159 indianerna 67 0.07%
160 studsare 67 0.07%
161 innan 66 0.07%
162 kom 65 0.07%
163 gingo 64 0.07%
164 nästan 64 0.07%
165 får 64 0.07%
166 gång 63 0.07%
167 aldrig 62 0.07%
168 gossen 62 0.07%
169 ingen 62 0.07%
170 dag 61 0.07%
171 morgon 61 0.07%
172 huset 61 0.07%
173 dessa 60 0.07%
174 anmärkte 60 0.07%
175 blevo 60 0.07%
176 hennes 60 0.07%
177 fram 59 0.07%
178 vill 59 0.07%
179 gjort 59 0.07%
180 hem 59 0.07%
181 hålla 59 0.07%
182 mina 58 0.06%
183 båda 58 0.06%
184 samt 58 0.06%
185 lämna 58 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 Nybyggarna i Canada by Frederick Marryat

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.