AI-generated familiarity estimates are a useful new source of information about word knowledge in Simplified…

AI / informaticsBehavior research methods· Jul 2026

AI-generated familiarity estimates are a useful new source of information about word knowledge in Simplified Chinese.

Ziyi Ding, Kangning Qin, Marc Brysbaert, Qing Cai

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Large Language Models in CareAI / informaticsQ1IF 5.6

AI-generated familiarity estimates are now available for a large set of Simplified Chinese words.

AI-generated familiarity estimates are a useful new source of information about word knowledge in Simplified Chinese.

Ziyi Ding … Qing Cai

Behavior research methods · Jul 2026

Purpose

This study evaluated the usefulness of AI-generated estimates of word familiarity for predicting word difficulty in Simplified Chinese, building on previous research in alphabetic languages.

Results

27,624

words

total Simplified Chinese words with new AI familiarity estimates now available

n = 27,624 words

More results

We found that familiarity estimates produced using large language models (large language models) showed moderate-to-strong correlations with human familiarity ratings.

GPT-4o with English instructions produced superior results compared to the Chinese-centered models currently available.

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Conclusion

We release familiarity estimates for 27,624 words for unrestricted research and educational use.

AI-generated familiarity estimates are a useful new source of information about word knowledge in Simplified Chinese.

AI-generated familiarity estimates are a useful new source of information about word knowledge in Simplified Chinese.

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