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CEFR text checker: find the reading level of your text

Paste a paragraph, an article or a whole chapter. You get an A1-C2 estimate, the four signals behind it, and the words that make the text hard.

Most level tests ask you questions. This one reads text. That difference matters more than it sounds: if you want to know whether a news article is suitable for a B1 class, or whether your own writing sits where you think it does, a twenty-question quiz cannot tell you. A profile of the actual language on the page can.

The estimate combines four independent measurements. The first and heaviest is vocabulary: every word is matched against a frequency list of 5,100 headwords banded from A1 to C2, and the tool works out which band you would need to already know in order to recognise 90% of the running words. The second is readability, via the Flesch-Kincaid grade. The third is mean sentence length, the strongest single indicator of syntactic load. The fourth is lexical diversity, measured with the Guiraud index so that a long text is not unfairly rewarded for repeating itself.

Paste at least 25 words. Around 120 words the estimate becomes stable; below that the tool says so rather than pretending to a precision it does not have.

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Paste at least 25 words to get an estimate.

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What the CEFR levels actually mean

The Common European Framework of Reference splits language ability into six levels across three bands. A1 and A2 are the basic user: A1 can handle set phrases and immediate needs, A2 can deal with routine exchanges about familiar topics. B1 and B2 are the independent user: B1 can cope with most situations that come up while travelling and can write connected text on familiar subjects, while B2 can follow technical discussion in their own field and argue a point of view.

C1 and C2 are the proficient user. C1 reads long, demanding texts and recognises implicit meaning; C2 understands virtually everything read or heard and can summarise arguments from different sources coherently. The jump from B2 to C1 is the largest in the framework, and it is mostly a vocabulary jump - the grammar is broadly in place by B2.

One thing the framework does not do is attach a word count to each level. That gap is why level estimation from text needs a frequency list: the CEFR describes what a learner can do, and the list supplies the lexical evidence for where a given text falls.

How to read the vocabulary profile

The profile shows what share of the running words in your text sits in each band. Function words - the, of, is, and - are A1 and typically account for 40-50% of any English text, so a high A1 share is normal and not a sign that the text is easy.

The number to watch is the tail. If more than about 8% of the words are C1, C2 or beyond the list, a learner reading without a dictionary will lose the thread. Research on reading comprehension consistently finds that learners need to recognise around 95% of the words in a text to follow it, and closer to 98% to read it for pleasure. A 10% unknown rate is roughly one unfamiliar word every second line.

The tool strips inflections and common derivations before looking a word up, so "regulators", "regulation" and "regulate" all count as the same word family - the unit that vocabulary research uses. Names of people and places are detected and excluded, because a proper noun tells you nothing about how hard the language is.

Where this estimate is weak

It measures the text, not the reader. A text can be lexically simple and still be hard because the ideas in it are hard, and no readability signal detects that. Poetry, dialogue-heavy fiction, and text with a lot of idiom will all be scored more easily than they read.

Short samples are noisy. A single long sentence in a fifty-word extract moves the sentence-length signal a long way. If you can, paste 200 words or more.

The frequency bands are a judgement, not a measurement. They combine frequency tier with the vocabulary that general-English syllabuses teach at each level. A different list would put some words a band higher or lower. That is why the tool shows you the four signals separately instead of only a letter: if three signals agree and one disagrees, you can see it.

Frequently asked questions

Other free tools

Readability checkerFlesch-Kincaid, Fog, SMOG and ARI
Vocabulary size testEstimate how many words you know
IELTS reading timerWork out the pace you need
Goethe B1 Lesen model test30 items, 65 minutes, every answer explained

Now read something at exactly this level

Knowing that an article is B2 only helps if you can then find B2 material worth reading. LingoRead generates passages at any CEFR level on topics you pick, highlights the vocabulary that is new to you, and asks comprehension questions afterwards - so the next thing you read is aimed one step above where you are, not five.

Generate a passage at my level

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CEFR Text Checker — Check English Reading Level | LingoRead