Count the syllables in one word or a whole poem. Every word gets a count and a split, every line gets a total, and haiku or any metre you name is checked line by line, with any count you disagree with yours to correct.
Type one word for its count and its split, or a short phrase to count it word by word.
The split follows the sound and is made by rule, so it is a guide rather than dictionary hyphenation. Where speakers differ, the alternative count is shown too.
Type a word, or pick one of the examples.
Every line is counted on its own. Leave a blank line between stanzas, and a pattern check starts again at each one.
Click a word to correct its count. Small numbers beside each word are its syllables; * marks a count you set.
Paste or type some lines above, or try one of the samples, to see a count for every line.
The split is a guide to the sound, made by rule, and can differ from dictionary hyphenation. Words from the exceptions list are tagged. A correction here applies to every use of the word.
Each word in your text will appear here with its count and its split, ready to correct.
Once the lines scan, measure the whole draft: words, characters, reading time, and the keywords it leans on.
Syllables per word is one half of a readability score; words per sentence is the other. Check sentence length here.
Turn a finished poem, speech, or article into minutes at the reading pace you choose.
Written English is a poor guide to spoken English, which is why counting syllables by eye goes wrong. The counter starts from the vowel groups in each word, then applies the rules a reader uses without thinking: a final e is usually silent, -ed only adds a beat after t or d, -le after a consonant makes its own syllable, and some vowel pairs are one sound while others are two. Around 300 common words that break those rules come from a hand-checked list. The result is a count per word, a total per line, and a check against whatever pattern your poem is meant to follow.
Type a single word into the quick box at the top for its count and its split. For anything longer, paste a poem, a song lyric, or a passage of prose into the main box, up to 50,000 characters. Every line is counted on its own, and a blank line starts a new stanza.
Leave the line view on Free to see a total beside each line. Pick Haiku to check 5-7-5, or Pattern to type your own: 8-6-8-6 for common metre, 10 for iambic pentameter, or a preset such as tanka or cinquain. Each line is marked as a match, short, or long, and the pattern restarts at every stanza.
Click a word in a line, or use the buttons in the word list, to set its count. The correction applies to every place that word appears, it is marked so you can tell your counts from the automatic ones, and it lasts until you reload or leave the page.
Vowel groups are counted, then corrected for silent e, -ed and -es endings, -le after a consonant, vowel pairs said as one sound or two, y as a vowel, and prefixes such as re- and co-. Around 300 words the rules get wrong, from business to people, come from a hand-checked list instead.
Each word is shown divided into syllables, such as syl-la-ble or choc-o-late. The split follows the sound and is made by rule, so treat it as a guide: it will not always match where a dictionary hyphenates a word at the end of a printed line.
Check 5-7-5, a preset such as common metre, long metre, tanka, cinquain, or a limerick, or any pattern you type. Every line gets its count, its target, and a plain verdict, and a haiku stanza with too many lines is flagged rather than quietly scored.
Fire, hour, flower, family, and chocolate are said with different numbers of syllables by different speakers. Words like these show the usual count and the alternative side by side, so you can pick the one that matches your voice and your metre.
Digits are counted the way they are spoken. 2024 reads as a year, twenty twenty-four, for five syllables; 21st, 3.14, and the 1990s are read too, and initials such as FBI or PDF are spelled out letter by letter.
Average syllables per word and the number of words with three or more syllables drive the Flesch, Flesch-Kincaid, and SMOG readability formulas. Both update as you type, alongside the total syllable and word counts.
Say the word slowly and count the beats. Many people clap along, or rest a hand under the chin, because the jaw drops once for each syllable. On paper, count vowel sounds rather than vowel letters: a silent final e, as in make, adds nothing, and a vowel pair said as one sound, as in boat, counts once. A consonant followed by -le, as in ta-ble, adds a beat, and so does a vowel pair said as two sounds, as in i-de-a. This counter applies those rules and uses a list for the words that break them.
Every is usually two syllables, ev-ery, though some speakers say three. Different is three, dif-fer-ent, or two in quick speech. Chocolate is three, choc-o-late, and often two, choc-late. Family is three, fam-i-ly, and sometimes two. Business is two, busi-ness, because its i is silent. People has two and idea has three. Every, different, chocolate, and family each show their alternative count in the word breakdown, and you can set whichever one you use.
In English, a haiku is usually written as three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, seventeen in all. The form comes from Japanese, which counts a different sound unit called the on, and seventeen on take less time to say than seventeen English syllables. That is why many English-language haiku poets write fewer than seventeen on purpose. Haiku mode checks the 5-7-5 count, and treats each stanza separated by a blank line as its own poem.
A line made of five iambs, where an iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. That is ten syllables, which is what a pattern of 10 checks. Shakespeare's line "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is a classic example. The counter checks the number of syllables only, not where the stress falls, and a line with a weak extra syllable at the end, called a feminine ending, has eleven.
Because speakers disagree. Fire and hour are one syllable for many people and two for others, who slip a short vowel in before the r. Flower and power are two syllables for most speakers and one for some. Dictionaries often list both pronunciations. Rather than pretend there is a single answer, this page gives the common count and shows the alternative beside it, and any word can be corrected by hand.
Every syllable has a vowel sound, but not every vowel letter makes one. The e at the end of make is silent, the ea in bread is a single sound, and the ou in house is one. Y works as a vowel in gym and happy. Some syllables have no vowel letter at all: the m carries the last beat of prism and rhythm, and the n gives didn't its second syllable.
A word with three or more syllables, such as beautiful, experience, or vocabulary. Readability formulas use the count: SMOG estimates the school grade needed to read a text from how many polysyllabic words appear in a sample of its sentences. A high share of them is one sign of dense writing. The counter shows how many words in your text have three or more syllables.
The Flesch Reading Ease score is 206.835, minus 1.015 times the average number of words per sentence, minus 84.6 times the average number of syllables per word; higher scores are easier to read. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is 0.39 times words per sentence, plus 11.8 times syllables per word, minus 15.59. Both lean heavily on the syllables-per-word figure this page shows, so replacing long words with short ones moves the score a long way.
Treat it as a careful estimate. It counts by rule plus a list of exceptions rather than looking every word up in a full pronouncing dictionary. Tested on 5,000 everyday words it had not been tuned on, it agreed with the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary on about 97 in every 100. Names, rare words, and words borrowed from other languages may be off by one, accents change some counts, and it reads English only. Click any word to set the count you hear.
No. Every count is worked out in your browser, and nothing you type is sent anywhere or saved. Corrections live only in the open page, so reloading clears them. The main box takes up to 50,000 characters, roughly 8,000 words, and the quick lookup takes up to 80 characters.
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