Syllable Counter

A syllable is one beat of sound in a word — a single vowel sound with the consonants attached to it. "Cat" is one, "garden" is two, "banana" is three. This syllable counter breaks your text down word by word and shows a running total per line, which is what you actually need when you are writing poetry, lyrics, a haiku or anything with a meter.

The counter works by finding vowel groups, then applying the standard English exceptions: a silent "e" at the end is dropped, a consonant plus "le" adds a beat (ta-ble, sim-ple), and vowel pairs that split across two beats (pi-ano, ra-di-o) are handled separately. A short list of well-known irregular words — business, Wednesday, chocolate, every — is corrected directly.

English pronunciation varies by accent, so no automatic counter is perfect for every word: "fire" and "poem" genuinely differ between speakers. When it matters for a poem, say the word aloud and tap it out. Everything runs locally in your browser, so nothing you paste is uploaded.