Syllable Counter

It counts syllables with a vowel-group heuristic. Each run of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, and y) counts as one syllable nucleus, so diphthongs like the 'oa' in 'boat' count once. It then adjusts for a silent final 'e' (as in 'cake'), keeps the 'e' in a consonant plus 'le' ending (as in 'table'), and drops a silent past-tense '-ed' (as in 'jumped'). You get a total, an average per word, and a breakdown by word and by line.

For everyday English it is right most of the time, but spelling does not map perfectly onto sound, so some words come out off by one. Vowels in hiatus undercount (for example 'create' reads as 1 instead of 2), '-ed' adjectives like 'naked' read as 1 instead of 2, and plurals of silent-e words like 'cakes' can read high. When an exact count matters, check a pronunciation dictionary, which lists the spoken syllable breaks.

Yes. The tool splits your text on line breaks and shows the syllable total for each line, which is exactly what you need for a haiku (5, 7, 5) or other syllabic forms. Put each line on its own row and read the per-line counts next to it. The overall total, word count, and average update at the same time.

Hyphens separate words, so 'state-of-the-art' counts as four words and four syllables. Contractions stay together, so 'don't' is one word with one syllable, and 'I'll' is one as well. This matches how you would read the words aloud.

No. Digits and symbols are ignored, so '3 cats' counts only 'cats'. If you want a number included, write it out as words (for example 'three'), and the counter reads it like any other word.

A syllable is a single unit of spoken sound built around one vowel sound, like the two beats in 'wa-ter'. A word can have one syllable ('cat') or many ('cal-cu-la-tor', which has four). Counting syllables helps with poetry, readability, language learning, and naming.