Resumen:
English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and there are
some linguists who have developed measures to discover how difficult a text is
according to its content for example Type-token Ratio, Lexical Variation and Lexical
Density. These measures have been used only in English and they are helpful in
English teaching to assess students and as a tool to produce materials to improve
reading comprehension and teach English in general.
Even though there is a way to determine the complexity of a text in English, lack
of studies in Spanish has not given the possibility to measure in this language. As a
consequence measures like Type-token Ratio, Lexical Variation and Lexical Density do
not have a specific range to indicate the level of complexity in Spanish.
As it was mentioned before these measures are used only in English so it was
essential to use these measures in two texts in English and its translations in Spanish.
The purpose was to compare the texts in English and Spanish because the content is
similar in both languages and the results of the measures in English could be adapted in
Spanish.
