Frequency

The Vocabulary Profiler from Tom Cobb's Compleat Lexical Tutor provides a breakdown of texts into frequency bands. There are two examples here.

The following two texts show a great contrast in their frequency profile.

This text has 92% of its words in the top 2000 most frequent words in English. See Vocab Profiler

Who pays for the donated rice? The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen. This is advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry).

If FreeRice has the rice to give, why not give it all away right now?

FreeRice is not sitting on a pile of rice―you are earning it 20 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

Who distributes the donated rice? The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The World Food Program is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. Wherever possible, the World Food Program buys food locally to support local farmers and the local economy.

Will the rice I donate make a difference? The rice you donate makes a huge difference to the person who receives it. According to the United Nations, about 25,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger-related causes, most of them children.

Where can I learn more about hunger? One last important thing you can do to help end hunger is to become knowledgeable about it. A good way to do this is to visit our sister site Poverty.com (designed so that busy people can learn quickly about hunger and poverty) or one of the many excellent sites listed here. We believe that when enough people around the world become knowledgeable about hunger, it will no longer be tolerated.

Short link: http://bit.ly/maelt_frequency

Vocabulary Analysis of Project Gutenberg

While Wordle is pretty and useful, Wordsift offers a similar visualisation of a text's most frequent items but includes a variety of other tools useful to vocabulary teaching. Watch the instructional video here.

This text has 70% of its vocab in the top 2000 most frequent words in English. See Vocab Profile

“To honour International Women's Day (IWD) 2007, the UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict new joint initiative will be announced in an interagency event in Geneva. The main goal of the initiative is to improve UN system actions on sexual violence in conflict.

In armed conflict today sexual violence is often used as a weapon of war. It serves as a combat tool to destroy individual lives, tear apart families and devastate communities. Too often perpetrators enjoy near complete impunity.

During the event, discussions on achievements and gaps in the United Nations response to sexual violence in conflict will take place. The event will increase awareness of and re-affirm the UN system's commitment to the issue.”

(http://www.who.int/gender/newevents/en/index.html)