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Syllable counter

Count syllables in your text — total, average per word and a per-word breakdown, with long words flagged.

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Syllable counter
Paste your text and get an instant syllable report: total syllables, the number of words and the average syllables per word, recalculated as you type. Turn on "Show per-word breakdown" to list every word with its count, and set "Flag words over N syllables" to surface the polysyllabic monsters — the default flags anything over four syllables.
Syllables matter wherever rhythm does. Poets counting out a haiku's 5-7-5 or a sonnet's meter, songwriters fitting lyrics to a melody, speech therapists preparing exercises, and teachers building phonics worksheets all need reliable counts fast. The average syllables per word is also the raw ingredient of readability formulas like Flesch–Kincaid: everyday English sits around 1.3 to 1.5 syllables per word, and a rising average is an early sign your draft is drifting into jargon.
Be aware the count is a heuristic, not a dictionary lookup, and that it follows the rules of the language picked under “Counting rules” — the page language unless you change it. The English rules count vowel groups and correct for a silent final e (“make” is one syllable), -ed and -es endings that add no syllable (“walked”, “makes”) and the -le ending that does (“table”). The Spanish rules split hiatus and keep diphthongs together; Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian count every vowel. Every other language counts vowel groups, which lands close for Slovak, Czech, German, Polish or Hungarian but is not a hyphenation engine.
Your text is processed entirely in your browser and never uploaded anywhere, so unpublished lyrics and drafts stay yours. Copy the report or download it as a .txt file.
FAQ
How accurate is the syllable count?
It is a heuristic, not a dictionary. Under the English rules it counts vowel groups and corrects for a silent final e and the -ed, -es and -le endings, which gets the large majority of English words right; an unusual spelling can still be off by one syllable.
Does it work for languages other than English?
Yes. “Counting rules” follows the page language by default. Spanish has its own rules — two strong vowels split (po-e-ta), an accented í or ú breaks a diphthong (dí-a), other pairs stay together (cie-lo) — and Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian count every vowel as a syllable, which is exact for them. Other languages count vowel groups with accented letters recognised; syllabic r and l, as in Czech “vrba”, are not modelled.
How is y handled?
Under the English rules it is a vowel everywhere except at the start of a word: “rhythm” and “easy” get their y syllables, while “yellow” starts with a consonant sound. Under the Spanish rules y is a vowel only at the end of a word (hoy, muy), and under the Turkish rules it is always a consonant.
What does "Flag words over N syllables" do?
Every word with more syllables than the threshold is listed under the report with its count in brackets — a quick way to find the long words that slow readers down.
Is a syllable counter the same as a syllable calculator or finder?
Yes — counter, calculator, checker and finder all describe the same task here: split text into words, count each word's syllables with the vowel-group heuristic, and total them. Use whichever term matches how you searched.
Further reading