Does LIX work for Norwegian Bokmål?

Yes. LIX was designed to be language-independent, relying only on word length and sentence length rather than syllables. Norwegian schools use the same long-word and sentence-length inputs as Swedish and Danish.

What is a long word in LIX?

A long word has more than six letters, meaning seven characters or more. Norwegian compound nouns are often long, which raises the long-word percentage and the overall score.

What LIX score is considered easy?

Under 35 is easy and suits general readers. 35 to 45 is typical newspaper level, and above 55 is technical or legal. Public-facing Norwegian text often targets under 40 for clarity.

Why does my score change when I split a sentence?

Average sentence length is added directly to the LIX value. Splitting one long sentence into two reduces words per sentence and lowers the index, sometimes by several points.

Yes. All counting and scoring happens locally in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored, or logged, so you can safely paste confidential drafts.

Norwegian LIX Readability Score

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LIX, called Lesbarhetsindeks in Norwegian, is the Scandinavian readability index used across Norwegian education to gauge how difficult a text is. Built originally for Swedish, it works for Norwegian Bokmål because it depends only on word length and sentence length, not on language-specific syllable rules.

How it works

LIX uses three counts: total words, total sentences, and the number of long words. A long word has more than six letters. The index is:

LIX = (words / sentences) + (longWords × 100 / words)

The first term is the average sentence length in words. The second is the share of long words as a percentage. Adding the two gives a single number that increases as sentences grow longer and as the text relies on more long words.

Tips and example

Norwegian builds compound nouns much like Swedish and Danish, so the long-word percentage often dominates the score. A simple early-reader text scores below 25, while a public regulation full of compounds and clauses can pass 55. To lower a LIX score, shorten sentences first because average sentence length feeds straight into the formula, then break apart long compounds where the meaning allows. Common Norwegian bands are: under 35 easy, 35 to 45 medium, 45 to 55 difficult, and over 55 very difficult.