A Study on Measuring Linguistic Difficulty of Chinese Educational Texts for Personalized Learning

This study proposes a method for evaluating the difficulty level of Chinese educational texts based on key linguistic factors: vocabulary difficulty, grammatical complexity, idiomatic expressions, and sentence length. In second language acquisition, learners are required to develop multiple language skills simultaneously, making the selection of level-appropriate reading materials essential for effective learning.<br/> Using the Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education (GF0025-2021) as the benchmark, this study conducted a quantitative analysis of the four linguistic features and examined their correlation with text difficulty levels. A multiple regression analysis revealed that vocabulary difficulty, grammar difficulty, and idiomatic expressions significantly affect text difficulty, while sentence length does not have a statistically meaningful impact. Notably, idiomatic expressions were identified as the most influential factor.<br/> A comprehensive readability formula was derived through discriminant analysis and applied to ungraded HSK texts. The results were then compared with expert evaluations to validate the formula’s practical applicability. This study offers an integrated approach to text difficulty assessment and highlights the need for future research to incorporate learners’ perceived difficulty to improve precision.