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Readability scores

McAlpine EFLAW Readability

EFLAW (English as a Foreign Language) score. Designed by Rachel McAlpine to evaluate text for ESL readers and global audiences. Lower is easier.

Built and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Last verified · Sources · Changes and corrections

When to use this

Use McAlpine EFLAW when writing for non-native English readers — product copy for global audiences, ESL teaching material, simplified news, plain-language guidelines. It penalises sentences crowded with short function words, which is where idiomatic English trips ESL readers up.

How it compares

EFLAW is unique in penalising short function words ("the", "and", "of"), which every syllable formula treats as easy. Flesch-Kincaid ignores word familiarity entirely. For ESL audiences, EFLAW is the more honest metric.

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How it works

McAlpine's EFLAW (English as a Foreign Language) score uses one simple formula: (words + mini-words) / sentences, where mini-words have 3 or fewer letters.

Each mini-word (the, of, an, to, it) counts twice, so sentences crowded with short function words score higher (harder). Those idiomatic short words are what ESL readers find hardest.

McAlpine's bands, applied to the score rounded to a whole number: 1–20 very easy to understand, 21–25 quite easy, 26–29 a little difficult, 30+ very confusing. Aim for 25 or below for global business audiences.

Formula

FAQs

Who is EFLAW for?

Writers targeting non-native English readers — global product copy, ESL teaching material, simplified news, plain-language guidelines.

What's a good EFLAW score?

McAlpine's bands are 1–20 very easy to understand, 21–25 quite easy, 26–29 a little difficult and 30+ very confusing, so aim for 25 or below for a global audience and 20 or below for beginners. This tool rounds the score to a whole number before banding it.

Why count "mini-words"?

Short words (the, of, an, to, it, get, put) do most of the work in idioms and phrasal verbs, which is what readers of English as a foreign language find hardest. Each one is counted a second time, so a sentence crowded with them scores higher, that is, harder.

Worked example

Input

"To get to the shop, walk down the road and turn right at the end."

Output

EFLAW 24.0 — quite easy to understand.

Fifteen words plus nine mini-words of three letters or fewer (to, get, to, the, the, and, at, the, end) in one sentence: (15 + 9) / 1 = 24, inside McAlpine's 21–25 "quite easy" band. To reach very easy (20 or below), split it into two sentences.

Common pitfalls

  • EFLAW is sentence-bound — bullet lists artificially shorten the score.
  • It doesn't penalize unusual long words at all; only sentence length and short words move the score.
  • Not validated outside English.
  • A short sample with one long sentence will mislead.

Difficulty for a reader whose first language is not English

McAlpine EFLAW measures something none of the other formulas here do: how hard a sentence is for someone reading English as a foreign language. It combines total words per sentence with the count of mini-words — words of three letters or fewer.

The mini-word term is the insight. Short function words are the easy part of English for a native reader and the hard part for a learner: prepositions, particles and phrasal verbs carry meaning that is idiomatic rather than derivable, and a sentence dense with them ("get on with it", "put up with", "look into") is difficult in a way that no syllable count detects.

What it changes about editing

Editing for EFLAW pushes in a direction the other formulas do not. Replacing a phrasal verb with a single longer Latinate word — "look into" becoming "investigate" — makes text *worse* by Flesch and Fog and *better* by EFLAW, and for an international audience EFLAW is right.

That makes it the formula to reach for on documentation, support content and anything with a global readership, and a poor choice for consumer copy aimed at native speakers, where the plain phrasal verb genuinely is the easier form.

Where these numbers come from

The method behind this tool, so you can check it rather than take it on trust.

  • McAlpine, R. (2006). From Plain English to Global English. CTTS.

    The EFLAW index, built to flag text that is hard for readers of English as a foreign language rather than hard in general, with its four bands: 1–20 very easy to understand, 21–25 quite easy, 26–29 a little difficult, 30+ very confusing.

  • Nirmaldasan (2009). “McAlpine EFLAW Readability Score.” Strain Index blog.

    Quotes McAlpine's band edges; her original web article is no longer online.

Read more about this

· 7 min read

EFLAW: the readability score built for non-native English readers

Most readability formulas count syllables and assume a native reader. McAlpine’s EFLAW takes a different angle — it counts the short words that trip up ESL audiences. Here is how the score works, why it correlates with real comprehension, and how to use it.

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