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Cover: Google Books

How hard is Ab urbe condita, Liber I to read?

The Early History of Rome

By Titus Livius · In Latin

IntermediateShort · 17,096 words
Words for 95% of the text
6,834
Sentence length
21.0 words
Words beyond the 5,000 most common
74 per 1,000
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Book I of Livy's history of Rome is an intermediate read in Latin, relative to our library. Its sentences are fairly long and periodic, and a good share of the vocabulary belongs to early Roman institutions and religious rites (assemblies, boundaries, heralds, omens), so expect to look these terms up often. It suits readers who already handle classical prose and want the legends of the kings of Rome in the original.

MnemoRead measured this book from its full text: how many of the language's most common words you need to follow it, and how long its sentences are.

How hard this book is

IntermediateAbout 40/100

Harder than 52% of our Latin books

The score rises with the words needed to cover 95% of the text and with sentence length. It is the same in every language. Books within about ten points of each other read about as hard.

Words for 95% of the text
6,834
Sentence length
21.0 words
One sentence in ten runs past 38 words
Length
Short
17,096 words · < 3 hours
Words beyond the 5,000 most common
74 per 1,000
Dialogue
9%

Vocabulary needed

Share of the text covered by the most common words of the language.

40%50%60%70%80%90%100%95%1001,00010,00030,0006,834

Names of people and places count as known words.

Show the numbers
Most common wordsShare of the text
10043.4%
25056.2%
50066.2%
1,00075.2%
2,00083.4%
3,00087.9%
5,00092.6%
7,50095.6%
10,00096.9%
15,00098.6%
20,00099.3%
30,00099.6%

Words to learn first

The words this book uses most that are not among the 5,000 most common of the language, with how often each appears.

  • centuriaĂ—20
  • primorisĂ—16
  • pomeriumĂ—7
  • condendusĂ—6
  • oriundusĂ—6
  • portendoĂ—6
  • accioĂ—5
  • auctoĂ—5
  • carpentumĂ—5
  • dimicatioĂ—5
  • educatusĂ—5
  • fetialisĂ—5
  • indictusĂ—5
  • nuntiumĂ—5
  • repetitusĂ—5
  • auctusĂ—4
  • baculumĂ—4
  • duumuirĂ—4
  • excieoĂ—4
  • excitusĂ—4

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