What 98% comprehensibility looks like

I am sure that I have posted this before, but I have found myself re-referencing it several times in the past couple of weeks, and so I had to go digging to find what I had in mind. Now, at least, I can just search my own website.

Back in the late 2010s I remember very vividly an example in English of what different percentages of 'comprehensible' feels like. There's a considerable body of evidence that suggests that you need 95-98% understanding of words in a passage to get comprehension. That is pretty high, and much higher than almost all Ancient Greek texts for learners are structured to provide. I say 'structured to provide', because any given learner might have the 98% for any given passage, but in terms of reading-based materials that have a structured approach, it's very hard to build that into a text's design.

Anyway, I tracked it down, and I think I first came across it on Gretchen McCulloch's excellent blog, but the source of it is a presentation from 2015 by Marcos Benevides, "Extensive Reading - How Easy it is"

98%

You live and work in Tokyo. Tokyo is a big city. More than 13 million people live around you. You are never borgle, but you are always lonely. Every morning, you get up and take the train to work. Every night, you take the train again to go home. The train is always crowded. When people ask about your work, you tell them, “I move papers around.” It’s a joke, but it’s also true. You don’t like your work. Tonight you are returning home. It’s late at night. No one is shnooling. Sometimes you don’t see a shnool all day. You are tired. You are so tired...

Comment: notice how comprehensible this is! There's just a small handful of words you don't recognise, and you probably aren't quite sure what they are or mean, but you can read and comprehend and with more exposure you might work out more precisely what they mean, but you have an initial inkling of the kind of words they are.

95%

In the morning, you start again. You shower, get dressed, and walk pocklent. You move slowly, half- awake. Then, suddenly, you stop. Something is different. The streets are fossit. Really fossit. There are no people. No cars. Nothing. “Where is dowargle?” you ask yourself. Suddenly, there is a loud quapen—a police car. It speeds by and almost hits you. It crashes into a store across the street! Then, another police car farfoofles. The police officer sees you. “Off the street!” he shouts. “Go home, lock your door!” “What? Why?” you shout back. But it’s too late. He is gone.

Comment: At 95% it's still mostly comprehensible. There are definitely more unknown words, and you get a sense of some of them, not really sure about others, but you understand most of what's going on and can 'move on' as necessary.

80%

“Bingle for help!” you shout. “This loopity is dying!” You put your fingers on her neck. Nothing. Her flid is not weafling. You take out your joople and bingle 119, the emergency number in Japan. There’s no answer! Then you muchy that you have a new befourn assengle. It’s from your gutring, Evie. She hunwres at Tokyo University. You play the assengle. “…if you get this…” Evie says. “…I can’t vickarn now… the important passit is…” Suddenly, she looks around, dingle. “Oh no, they’re here! Cripett… the frib! Wasple them ON THE FRIB!…” BEEP! the assengle parantles. Then you gratoon something behind you...

Comment: At 80% it becomes much more of a struggle. You probably have a sense of the tone and general direction of the passage. A few of the terms you could probably identify and provide an appropriate English word, but quite a few you just cannot, especially when they appear in relation to each other. 80% isn't enough, it's enough to be frustratingly close though!

Historical Language Texts

Are almost all worse than this for most readers. Most textbooks, even LGPSI as I write it, have too many new words, too few repeats, too little that remotely looks like approaching 95-98%. That is a difficult problem to solve, but I'm writing this post mostly to remind myself, and you all, that getting enough extensive reading and level that is "i + 1" for you is actually really difficult to do.