Learn
Grade 1 and Grade 2 braille: what actually changes
Grade 1, or uncontracted braille, writes every letter. Grade 2, or contracted braille, adds 182 contractions. Over a whole novel that makes the same text 28.6% shorter: 137 braille pages in place of 176.
The same sentence in both grades
The opening words of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written twice by this site’s translator.
Grade 1 — 61 cells
⠠⠁⠇⠊⠉⠑ ⠺⠁⠎ ⠃⠑⠛⠊⠝⠝⠊⠝⠛ ⠞⠕ ⠛⠑⠞ ⠧⠑⠗⠽ ⠞⠊⠗⠑⠙ ⠕⠋ ⠎⠊⠞⠞⠊⠝⠛ ⠃⠽ ⠓⠑⠗ ⠎⠊⠎⠞⠑⠗ ⠕⠝ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠃⠁⠝⠅
Grade 2 — 43 cells, 18 fewer
⠠⠁⠇⠊⠉⠑ ⠴ ⠆⠛⠔⠝⠬ ⠞⠕ ⠛⠑⠞ ⠧ ⠞⠊⠗⠫ ⠷ ⠎⠊⠞⠞⠬ ⠃⠽ ⠓⠻ ⠎⠊⠌⠻ ⠕⠝ ⠮ ⠃⠁⠝⠅
9 of its 15 words are written differently. Nothing is left out in Grade 2: each contraction stands for exactly the letters it replaces.
| Word | Grade 1 | Grade 2 | Contractions used |
|---|---|---|---|
| was | ⠺⠁⠎ 3 | ⠴ 1 | “was” |
| beginning | ⠃⠑⠛⠊⠝⠝⠊⠝⠛ 9 | ⠆⠛⠔⠝⠬ 5 | “be”, “in”, “ing” |
| very | ⠧⠑⠗⠽ 4 | ⠧ 1 | “very” |
| tired | ⠞⠊⠗⠑⠙ 5 | ⠞⠊⠗⠫ 4 | “ed” |
| of | ⠕⠋ 2 | ⠷ 1 | “of” |
| sitting | ⠎⠊⠞⠞⠊⠝⠛ 7 | ⠎⠊⠞⠞⠬ 5 | “ing” |
| her | ⠓⠑⠗ 3 | ⠓⠻ 2 | “er” |
| sister | ⠎⠊⠎⠞⠑⠗ 6 | ⠎⠊⠌⠻ 4 | “st”, “er” |
| the | ⠞⠓⠑ 3 | ⠮ 1 | “the” |
Two names for each
The Rules of Unified English Braille use “uncontracted” and “contracted”, and say that “grade 1 braille” and “grade 2 braille” mean the same things. Both pairs of names are in use, and this site uses both.
One distinction is easy to miss. Grade 1 mode is not the same as Grade 1 braille. It is a switch inside contracted braille: a grade 1 indicator, or a number sign, turns the contractions off for the next symbol, word or passage (rulebook, section 5). So a letter b standing alone is written ⠰⠃, with the indicator in front, because ⠃ by itself is the word “but”. And “1st” is ⠼⠁⠎⠞, with s and t as separate cells, although “st” is one cell in ⠌⠕⠏: a contraction may not follow a number (6.5.3).
What Grade 2 adds
Section 2.2 of the rulebook lists 182 contractions in nine families. The last column is how much of the saving each family did over the whole of the book, from a count of every contraction in it.
| Family | How many | For example | Share of the saving |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alphabetic wordsigns | 23 | “but” ⠃ | 15.7% |
| Strong wordsigns | 6 | “child” ⠡ | 3.0% |
| Strong contractions | 5 | “the” ⠮ | 22.3% |
| Strong groupsigns | 12 | “ing” ⠬ | 23.1% |
| Lower wordsigns | 6 | “was” ⠴ | 4.8% |
| Lower groupsigns | 10 | “ea” ⠂ | 6.2% |
| Initial-letter contractions | 33 | “mother” ⠐⠍ | 8.5% |
| Final-letter groupsigns | 12 | “tion” ⠰⠝ | 2.4% |
| Shortforms | 75 | “little” ⠇⠇ | 14.1% |
The work is unevenly shared. 16 contractions do half of the saving, and the sign for “the” alone does 12.1%. The full list has a page for each.
How much shorter Grade 2 is
Measured by laying out the whole book, 26,439 words, on pages of 40 cells by 25 lines:
| Grade 1 | Grade 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cells | 120,501 | 86,072 |
| Lines | 4,215 | 3,283 |
| Pages | 176 | 137 |
| Words per page | 150 | 193 |
Grade 2 has 28.6% fewer cells and 22.2% fewer pages. The page-count study has the method, and the estimator does the same for your own text.
When uncontracted braille is used
The rulebook calls uncontracted braille “a transcription option which may be selected for any number of reasons” (2.5), and names five: when a contraction would hinder the pronunciation or recognition of a word; in Middle English; in foreign words; in texts for readers who have not learned contracted braille; and when the spelling of a word is the point, as in a dictionary entry.
Some settings leave no choice. On signs in the United States the 2010 ADA Standards require that braille “shall be contracted (Grade 2)”; the signs pages give the clause.
Contractions depend on where a word stands
Grade 2 is not find-and-replace. Whether a contraction is used depends on what is around it, and the translator has to follow the same rules a transcriber does.
- A wordsign needs the word to be standing alone. ⠃ is “but”; inside “table” the b is only a letter, ⠞⠁⠃⠇⠑.
- “was” is one cell in “He was late”, and spelled out in “He was, in fact, late”: the lower wordsign is not used in contact with a punctuation sign that has only lower dots (10.5.1).
- After a number, contractions stop until the next space, hyphen or dash (5.6.2): ⠼⠁⠎⠞.
This is why automatic Grade 2 output, this site’s included, should be checked by a qualified transcriber before it is embossed for someone to rely on. How often this translator differs from the reference is measured and published, and what it does not cover is set out in full.
Where to start
Grade 1 is the alphabet, the numbers and the punctuation, and everything in Grade 2 is built on it. In the book measured here, the first 40 contractions of the ranking account for 75.7% of what Grade 2 saves. The other guides take the rest in order.