Sharon Domier's blog

The jReadability portal has 4 different options, 2 of which are the most important for L2 Japanese learners (and my interest).

There is a video that shows you how to use the jReadability function. This video was quite helpful, so the link is here:
https://youtu.be/faOGrpAjook

The URL for portal is here: https://jreadability.net/en-portal.html

jReadability allows you to check the reading level of writing to find out the level of difficulty. The readability scores are for L2 not for L1 readers. It also has the option to remove furigana (like from Aozora texts) before calculating readability. I can see this option being very helpful as faculty and students try to select texts to read.

I tested a few texts that commonly get used with undergrads-Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s Kumo no ito and the results look pretty good. Because they are old texts, the jReadability doesn’t really recognize old hiragana but because you can look at text details, it is quick and easy to decide whether the advanced stuff is really too advanced or just the right amount of challenge.

I have been looking for this kind of analyzer for a while and am so happy that I finally found it (and can’t quite believe that I didn’t find it before this). I will never lose this website again.

The jWriter function is to help students (and their instructors) see how their writing level is progressing. There are only 5 levels here (compared to the jReadability that has 6 levels). I think this could also have some real benefits for the tadoku courses where students are submitting their own books as the final assignment.