Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 by Oscar Alin : Difficulty Assessment for Swedish Learners

How difficult is Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 for Swedish learners? We have performed multiple tests on its full text (freely available here) of approximately 100,787, crunched all the numbers for you and present the results below.

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Difficulty Assessment Summary

We have estimated Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 to have a difficulty score of 76. Here're its scores:

Measure Score
easy difficult (1 - 100)
Overall Difficulty 76% 76
Vocabulary Difficulty 94% 94
Grammatical Difficulty 59% 59

Vocabulary Difficulty: Breakdown

94%

Vocabulary difficulty: 94%

This score has been calculated based on frequency vocabulary (the top most frequently used words in Swedish). It combines various measures of Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611'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 Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611:

Vocabulary difficulty breakdown for Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611: a test for Swedish top frequency vocabulary

We have also calculated the following approximate data on the vocabulary in Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611:

Measure Score
Measure Score
Number of words 100,787
Number of unique words 15,461
Number of recognized words for names/places/other entities 7,107
Number of very rare non-entity words 10,386
Number of sentences 13,057
Average number of words/sentence 8

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 15,151 words (where all the forms of the word are still counted as unique words) in Swedish to be able to read Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 without a dictionary and fully understand it.

Grammatical Difficulty: Breakdown

59%

Grammatical difficulty: 59%

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 6
Coleman-Liau Index 10
Type/Token Ratio (TTR) 0.153403
Root type/Token Ratio (RTTR) 0.00000152205
Corrected type/Token Ratio (CTTR) 0.000000761024
MTLD Index 66
HDD Index 69
Yule's I Index 80
Lexical Diversity Index (MTLD + HD-D + Yule's I) 72

The type-token ratio (TTR) of Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 is 0.153403. 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 15,461, while the number of words is 100,787, so the TTR is 15,461 / 100,787 = 0.153403. 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, 15,461 / (100,787 * 100,787) = 0.00000152205), while in CTTR, it is divided by a square of the number of words, multiplied twice 15,461 / 2 * (100,787 * 100,787) = 0.000000761024). 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 6, making it understandable for 6-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 72 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 59.

Other Information about Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 by Oscar Alin

We provide you a sample of the text below, however, the full text of the Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 is also available free of charge on our website.

Sample of text:

Rikets förnämsta män — Per Brahe, Erik Larsson Sparre, Hogenskild Bjelke, Erik och Arvid Gustafsson (Stenbock) med flere — .stodo nämligen i denna sak afgjordt på konungens sida, hvartill bidrog dels deras kännedom om den myndige hertigens mot aristokratien föga välvilliga sinnelag, dels enskilda tvister, som under flere år å ömse sidor uppretat sinnena. Högadelns lika som konungens ovilja mot hertigen stegrades ytterligare i följd af en händelse som inträffade året efter det nämda betänkande afgafe. Konung Johan hade i november 1583 genom döden förlorat sin ädla gemål Kataring,. Hans lynne blef härefter ännu retligare än förut, och han iingaf sjelf sin »ensörjande lägenhet» såsom ett skäl dertill. För att komma derur eller, såsom han i december 1584 meddelade rådet, »för många orsakers skull och besynnerligen till att undfly tillstundande sjukdomar och ohelsa, sä ock många melankoliska affekter, stora, djupa tankar och annat mycket ...

Top most frequently used words in Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 by Oscar Alin*

Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
Position Word Repetitions Part of all words
1 och 3,445 3.42%
2 att 2,312 2.29%
3 af 1,703 1.69%
4 som 1,505 1.49%
5 till 1,453 1.44%
6 den 1,310 1.3%
7 de 1,296 1.29%
8 det 994 0.99%
9 med 974 0.97%
10 han 964 0.96%
11 en 919 0.91%
12 för 816 0.81%
13 sig 739 0.73%
14 725 0.72%
15 ej 670 0.66%
16 var 606 0.6%
17 skulle 603 0.6%
18 om 559 0.55%
19 484 0.48%
20 hade 473 0.47%
21 hans 424 0.42%
22 ett 419 0.42%
23 konung 402 0.4%
24 vid 391 0.39%
25 under 361 0.36%
26 man 356 0.35%
27 sin 343 0.34%
28 konungen 335 0.33%
29 honom 319 0.32%
30 men 309 0.31%
31 Karl 286 0.28%
32 dem 283 0.28%
33 Gustaf 277 0.27%
34 från 275 0.27%
35 mot 271 0.27%
36 efter 266 0.26%
37 262 0.26%
38 eller 256 0.25%
39 kunde 248 0.25%
40 än 247 0.25%
41 icke 240 0.24%
42 hafva 236 0.23%
43 är 233 0.23%
44 nu 232 0.23%
45 denna 220 0.22%
46 utan 219 0.22%
47 voro 215 0.21%
48 detta 210 0.21%
49 sitt 209 0.21%
50 genom 200 0.2%
51 såsom 198 0.2%
52 Sverige 197 0.2%
53 sina 190 0.19%
54 konungens 189 0.19%
55 äfven 177 0.18%
56 andra 175 0.17%
57 hvad 174 0.17%
58 alla 173 0.17%
59 vara 171 0.17%
60 ville 170 0.17%
61 der 165 0.16%
62 tid 164 0.16%
63 dess 163 0.16%
64 svenska 150 0.15%
65 deras 149 0.15%
66 dock 149 0.15%
67 sedan 149 0.15%
68 väl 147 0.15%
69 samma 147 0.15%
70 inom 145 0.14%
71 år 143 0.14%
72 Erik 141 0.14%
73 öfver 140 0.14%
74 Johan 137 0.14%
75 varit 136 0.13%
76 allt 135 0.13%
77 något 135 0.13%
78 vore 132 0.13%
79 blifvit 131 0.13%
80 Gustafs 131 0.13%
81 någon 131 0.13%
82 rådet 129 0.13%
83 Sveriges 126 0.13%
84 riket 125 0.12%
85 ock 124 0.12%
86 några 120 0.12%
87 Stockholm 119 0.12%
88 blef 118 0.12%
89 ständerna 112 0.11%
90 rikets 110 0.11%
91 Upsala 110 0.11%
92 mellan 109 0.11%
93 dessa 109 0.11%
94 bref 107 0.11%
95 nya 107 0.11%
96 lika 106 0.11%
97 ännu 103 0.1%
98 bland 103 0.1%
99 endast 102 0.1%
100 män 98 0.1%
101 hertig 98 0.1%
102 for 98 0.1%
103 hvilka 97 0.1%
104 vi 95 0.09%
105 göra 91 0.09%
106 gamla 91 0.09%
107 mycket 90 0.09%
108 annat 90 0.09%
109 Karls 89 0.09%
110 kan 88 0.09%
111 87 0.09%
112 emot 86 0.09%
113 del 86 0.09%
114 åter 85 0.08%
115 hertigen 85 0.08%
116 beslut 84 0.08%
117 början 84 0.08%
118 råd 83 0.08%
119 måste 81 0.08%
120 Danmark 81 0.08%
121 sjelf 81 0.08%
122 intet 80 0.08%
123 kunna 80 0.08%
124 åt 78 0.08%
125 följande 77 0.08%
126 mera 77 0.08%
127 huru 76 0.08%
128 kyrkans 76 0.08%
129 förut 76 0.08%
130 här 75 0.07%
131 hos 75 0.07%
132 redan 74 0.07%
133 rätt 73 0.07%
134 Sigismund 71 0.07%
135 hela 71 0.07%
136 blifva 70 0.07%
137 emellertid 69 0.07%
138 första 69 0.07%
139 tre 68 0.07%
140 fick 68 0.07%
141 denne 68 0.07%
142 sätt 67 0.07%
143 adeln 66 0.07%
144 kyrkan 65 0.06%
145 först 65 0.06%
146 hvilken 65 0.06%
147 skall 64 0.06%
148 komma 64 0.06%
149 gjorde 64 0.06%
150 gång 64 0.06%
151 mindre 64 0.06%
152 flere 63 0.06%
153 många 63 0.06%
154 annan 62 0.06%
155 Johans 62 0.06%
156 derför 62 0.06%
157 dermed 61 0.06%
158 ingen 59 0.06%
159 ställning 58 0.06%
160 synes 58 0.06%
161 senare 58 0.06%
162 hålla 58 0.06%
163 riksdagen 57 0.06%
164 lät 57 0.06%
165 svar 57 0.06%
166 derefter 57 0.06%
167 ifrån 56 0.06%
168 juni 56 0.06%
169 ny 55 0.05%
170 Kalmar 55 0.05%
171 Eriks 55 0.05%
172 gifva 55 0.05%
173 Sigismunds 54 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 Sveriges nydaningstid, från år 1521 till år 1611 by Oscar Alin

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.