Is there an app or software that analyses an English text and simplifies it? This is a frequent query from readers of this column. Very recently, I came across a website that comes as an answer to the query. www.rewordify.com has many wonderful features. It analyses any text in English, identifies hard words in the text and replaces them with easier words, presents the average sentence length and reading level analysis in the form of a graph etc. Yes, it is rightly named Rewordify.com Understand what you read.
The site has many amazing features that make learning English fun. When we type in or copy-paste an English text in the space provided and click the ‘rewordify’ button, the site instantly simplifies the text and highlights the words and phrases it simplified. The example below has the original text and the rewordified (simplified) version:
■ Dr Rakesh, a dermatologist, married a cardiologist though he was in love with a neurologist. (original text)
■ Dr Rakesh, a skin doctor, married a heart doctor though he was in love with a nerve doctor. (rewordified)
The words dermatologist, cardiologist and neurologist are replaced by the terms skin doctor, heart doctor, and nerve doctor respectively. Here are more examples:
Original Text:
■ We want the new Chief Minister to abjure all the evil policies of the former CM.
■ The fans of Tendulkar welcomed their hero with approbation.
■ Ramesh and Suresh, once great friends, have antipathy for each other.
Rewordified Text:
■ We want the new Chief Minister to reject all the evil policies of the former CM.
■ The fans of Tendulkar welcomed their hero with approval.
■ Ramesh and Suresh, once great friends, have dislike for each other.
Rewordify.com analyses the readability level of the original and rewordified text and gives these details: total number of characters, total number of words, total number of hard words, readability chart, average sentence length. This is a very useful feature for writers and learners as it helps them get an idea of who can understand a writing passage. It displays a readability bar and a reading level number between 1 and 10, where 1 means the passage is very easy, and 10 means the passage is very difficult. Look at the example below:
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday filed an FIR naming Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Birla and former Coal Secretary P C Parekh for having allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy to facilitate the partial allocation of an Odisha coal block to the group’s subsidiary, Hindalco Industries, about eight years ago.
This sentence, according to the site, has four difficult words for an average learner of English and has the reading level of 10.9. It means it is difficult for a learner to comprehend the text. The settings section has many options. If the user selects the Loud option, hard words will be reworded to easier ones, the rewordings will be highlighted, and by hovering the mouse over the rewordings the original hard words can be seen. If the user selects the Reverse Loud option, hard words will be highlighted and by hovering the mouse over the highlighted words the easier options can be seen. The Inline option will show the original word in purple and the easier word in yellow in the same line as in this example: Joe is a dermatologist [skin doctor] and his wife is an entrepreneur [a small-business starter]. The Add List option enables the user to add their own custom word list by entering word = definition pairs. Visit the site and have fun.