How does the Portuguese Flesch formula differ from English?

The coefficients are the same, but the base constant is raised. The Martins et al. (1996) adaptation uses 248.835 - 1.015 times words-per-sentence - 84.6 times syllables-per-word, compared with 206.835 in English. The higher constant compensates for the fact that Portuguese words carry more syllables on average, which would otherwise depress the score unfairly.

What do the score bands mean?

Higher is easier, just like English Flesch. The Brazilian-Portuguese interpretation commonly cited for this adaptation reads 75 to 100 as muito fácil (very easy), 50 to 75 as fácil (easy), 25 to 50 as difícil (difficult), and 0 to 25 as muito difícil (very difficult).

How are syllables counted?

Syllables are counted with the same diphthong and hiatus rules used by our Portuguese syllable counter: vowel runs are split into nuclei, two strong vowels never share a syllable, an accented weak vowel forms its own syllable, and tilde clusters like ão and õe count once. This makes syllables-per-word, the dominant term in the formula, accurate.

How are sentences detected?

Sentences are split on the marks period, question mark, exclamation mark, and ellipsis. Abbreviations with internal periods can occasionally inflate the sentence count, so for very abbreviation-heavy text the score may shift slightly. For normal prose the split is reliable.

Should I trust the score for European Portuguese?

The adaptation was calibrated on Brazilian Portuguese, so the band labels are most precise there. European Portuguese has the same orthographic syllable structure, so the formula still gives a sound relative ranking, but treat the absolute band as a guide rather than a calibrated grade.

Portuguese Flesch Readability

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This tool scores how easy a Portuguese passage is to read using the Martins et al. (1996) adaptation of the Flesch Reading Ease formula. It measures two things that drive difficulty: how long the sentences are and how many syllables the average word carries.

How it works

The adapted formula keeps the original Flesch coefficients but raises the base constant for Portuguese:

ease = 248.835 - 1.015 * (words / sentences) - 84.6 * (syllables / words)

The tool counts words, splits sentences on ., ?, !, and …, and counts syllables with real Portuguese diphthong and hiatus rules. Longer sentences and more polysyllabic words both pull the score down, so concise sentences and shorter words raise it. Higher scores mean easier text.

Why the constant changes

A direct application of the English constant (206.835) systematically underrates Portuguese because Portuguese words average more syllables than English words. Martins and colleagues recalibrated the base term to 248.835 so that the resulting scale lines up with reader-perceived difficulty in Brazilian Portuguese. The band labels (muito fácil, fácil, difícil, muito difícil) follow that calibration. For demanding text, shorten sentences and prefer common, shorter words, then re-score to confirm the improvement.