Storborgare och Stadsmajorer by Carl Forsstrand : Difficulty Assessment for Swedish Learners

How difficult is Storborgare och Stadsmajorer for Swedish learners? We have performed multiple tests on its full text (freely available here) of approximately 47,781, crunched all the numbers for you and present the results below.

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Difficulty Assessment Summary

We have estimated Storborgare och Stadsmajorer to have a difficulty score of 79. Here're its scores:

Measure Score
easy difficult (1 - 100)
Overall Difficulty 79% 79
Vocabulary Difficulty 95% 95
Grammatical Difficulty 64% 64

Vocabulary Difficulty: Breakdown

95%

Vocabulary difficulty: 95%

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

Vocabulary difficulty breakdown for Storborgare och Stadsmajorer: a test for Swedish top frequency vocabulary

We have also calculated the following approximate data on the vocabulary in Storborgare och Stadsmajorer:

Measure Score
Measure Score
Number of words 47,781
Number of unique words 11,014
Number of recognized words for names/places/other entities 3,249
Number of very rare non-entity words 4,566
Number of sentences 7,759
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 10,793 words (where all the forms of the word are still counted as unique words) in Swedish to be able to read Storborgare och Stadsmajorer 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) 0.23051
Root type/Token Ratio (RTTR) 0.0000048243
Corrected type/Token Ratio (CTTR) 0.00000241215
MTLD Index 80
HDD Index 70
Yule's I Index 80
Lexical Diversity Index (MTLD + HD-D + Yule's I) 77

The type-token ratio (TTR) of Storborgare och Stadsmajorer is 0.23051. 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 11,014, while the number of words is 47,781, so the TTR is 11,014 / 47,781 = 0.23051. 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, 11,014 / (47,781 * 47,781) = 0.0000048243), while in CTTR, it is divided by a square of the number of words, multiplied twice 11,014 / 2 * (47,781 * 47,781) = 0.00000241215). 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 77 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 Storborgare och Stadsmajorer by Carl Forsstrand

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

Sample of text:

s. v. Linneförrådet utgjordes av 5 damast- och 28 drällsdukar samt 9 dussin damast-och 46 dussin drällsservietter m. m. Kör- och äkred-skapen bestod av två kupévagnar, en wienervagn, en holsteinervagn, en fyrsitsig kalesch, fyra ensitsiga schäsar, 89öppna och täckta slädar och kälkrackar m. m. Jämte tolv stycken hästar funnos ett par dragoxar och fyra kor, som förmodligen höllo till på Barnhusdyn eller ...

Top most frequently used words in Storborgare och Stadsmajorer by Carl Forsstrand*

Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
1 och 2,006 4.2%
2 av 934 1.95%
3 att 611 1.28%
4 som 578 1.21%
5 den 566 1.18%
6 med 556 1.16%
7 en 527 1.1%
8 till 504 1.05%
9 han 476 1%
10 för 405 0.85%
11 var 404 0.85%
12 de 345 0.72%
13 323 0.68%
14 det 316 0.66%
15 vid 314 0.66%
16 ett 240 0.5%
17 om 228 0.48%
18 hade 222 0.46%
19 sig 222 0.46%
20 ej 217 0.45%
21 hans 216 0.45%
22 sin 202 0.42%
23 eller 186 0.39%
24 Westman 166 0.35%
25 Abraham 161 0.34%
26 år 157 0.33%
27 men 156 0.33%
28 146 0.31%
29 efter 144 0.3%
30 honom 130 0.27%
31 nämligen 129 0.27%
32 även 128 0.27%
33 Johan 122 0.26%
34 är 122 0.26%
35 119 0.25%
36 samt 118 0.25%
37 från 117 0.24%
38 under 115 0.24%
39 ha 115 0.24%
40 rdr 113 0.24%
41 andra 112 0.23%
42 man 109 0.23%
43 några 106 0.22%
44 blev 105 0.22%
45 Lorenzson 105 0.22%
46 Stockholm 102 0.21%
47 jag 101 0.21%
48 såsom 100 0.21%
49 sitt 98 0.21%
50 har 85 0.18%
51 denna 82 0.17%
52 kv 81 0.17%
53 sina 80 0.17%
54 Westin 80 0.17%
55 vilken 79 0.17%
56 voro 79 0.17%
57 bland 78 0.16%
58 b:ko 77 0.16%
59 skulle 76 0.16%
60 varit 76 0.16%
61 Carl 76 0.16%
62 två 75 0.16%
63 detta 74 0.15%
64 hon 73 0.15%
65 dock 72 0.15%
66 där 70 0.15%
67 följande 70 0.15%
68 talet 69 0.14%
69 än 65 0.14%
70 nu 64 0.13%
71 sålunda 63 0.13%
72 utan 63 0.13%
73 sedan 62 0.13%
74 Lorenz 62 0.13%
75 blivit 61 0.13%
76 barn 61 0.13%
77 mycket 60 0.13%
78 åt 60 0.13%
79 hos 59 0.12%
80 vilka 56 0.12%
81 genom 56 0.12%
82 sid 55 0.12%
83 flera 55 0.12%
84 väl 55 0.12%
85 gift 54 0.11%
86 dem 54 0.11%
87 huset 54 0.11%
88 bryggaren 53 0.11%
89 icke 52 0.11%
90 vara 51 0.11%
91 kan 51 0.11%
92 stora 50 0.1%
93 dessa 50 0.1%
94 Elisabeth 50 0.1%
95 emellertid 49 0.1%
96 många 48 0.1%
97 död 48 0.1%
98 bryggare 48 0.1%
99 alla 47 0.1%
100 första 47 0.1%
101 hus 46 0.1%
102 tre 45 0.09%
103 deras 45 0.09%
104 också 45 0.09%
105 tid 44 0.09%
106 här 44 0.09%
107 skall 43 0.09%
108 redan 43 0.09%
109 blott 43 0.09%
110 hennes 43 0.09%
111 mig 43 0.09%
112 ägde 42 0.09%
113 ganska 41 0.09%
114 över 41 0.09%
115 dotter 41 0.09%
116 fick 40 0.08%
117 son 39 0.08%
118 Christina 39 0.08%
119 torde 39 0.08%
120 mer 38 0.08%
121 kunde 38 0.08%
122 38 0.08%
123 fyra 38 0.08%
124 avled 37 0.08%
125 dess 37 0.08%
126 Fredrik 37 0.08%
127 års 37 0.08%
128 samma 36 0.08%
129 Erik 36 0.08%
130 Clara 36 0.08%
131 något 36 0.08%
132 särskildt 36 0.08%
133 någon 36 0.08%
134 Jacob 36 0.08%
135 Sthlm 36 0.08%
136 mot 36 0.08%
137 sk 36 0.08%
138 äro 35 0.07%
139 herr 35 0.07%
140 Gustaf 35 0.07%
141 söner 34 0.07%
142 ännu 34 0.07%
143 förut 34 0.07%
144 gjorde 34 0.07%
145 Stockholms 34 0.07%
146 dagar 33 0.07%
147 Anna 33 0.07%
148 Isaac 33 0.07%
149 senare 33 0.07%
150 Oldenburg 33 0.07%
151 hur 33 0.07%
152 början 32 0.07%
153 32 0.07%
154 ty 32 0.07%
155 annat 32 0.07%
156 Lorenzsons 31 0.06%
157 mellan 31 0.06%
158 först 31 0.06%
159 vad 31 0.06%
160 allt 31 0.06%
161 par 31 0.06%
162 släkten 30 0.06%
163 Johansson 30 0.06%
164 konungen 30 0.06%
165 Anders 30 0.06%
166 fru 30 0.06%
167 ålder 30 0.06%
168 ställning 30 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 Storborgare och Stadsmajorer by Carl Forsstrand

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.