# Cross-Lingual Transfer Learning for Complex Word Identification

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.01108 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01108/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 Oct 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [UPB at SemEval-2021 Task 1: Combining Deep Learning and Hand-Crafted Features for Lexical Complexity Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06983/) (2021)
- [Domain Adaptation in Multilingual and Multi-Domain Monolingual Settings for Complex Word Identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07283/) (2022)
- [Lexical Complexity Prediction: An Overview](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04851/) (2023)
- [Investigating Large Language Models for Complex Word Identification in Multilingual and Multidomain Setups](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.01706/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Survey of Challenges and Opportunities of Few-Shot Learning Across Multiple Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.04017/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Complex Word Identification (CWI) is a task centered on detecting hard-to-understand words, or groups of words, in texts from different areas of expertise. The purpose of CWI is to highlight problematic structures that non-native speakers would usually find difficult to understand. Our approach uses zero-shot, one-shot, and few-shot learning techniques, alongside state-of-the-art solutions for Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks (i.e., Transformers). Our aim is to provide evidence that the proposed models can learn the characteristics of complex words in a multilingual environment by relying on the CWI shared task 2018 dataset available for four different languages (i.e., English, German, Spanish, and also French). Our approach surpasses state-of-the-art cross-lingual results in terms of macro F1-score on English (0.774), German (0.782), and Spanish (0.734) languages, for the zero-shot learning scenario. At the same time, our model also outperforms the state-of-the-art monolingual result for German (0.795 macro F1-score).