Limato
Syllable Counter
Count syllables in any text as you type — for haiku, lyrics, or plainer prose. Free, private, no signup.
How the syllable counter works
Paste or type your text above. The counter finds the vowel groups in each word, then corrects for the spellings English doesn't pronounce — the silent -e in make, the -ed in hopped, the -es in cakes — and adds up the result live. It also shows syllables per word, the single number that tells you whether your vocabulary is heavy or light.
Nothing is uploaded. The count runs in your browser, so you can paste an unpublished poem or a client email without it leaving your machine.
English syllable counts are estimates — here's why
We'd rather say this up front than pretend otherwise: no software counts English syllables perfectly, and neither does this one. Spanish or Italian syllables follow written rules, so a program can be exact. English syllables live in the pronunciation, and the pronunciation isn't in the spelling.
- Words people say differently. Fire, hour, our and flower are one syllable for some speakers and two for others. Every, family and chocolate are three in the dictionary and two in most mouths.
- Vowels that meet. Poem, create, science and quiet each hide a syllable break inside a vowel pair that looks exactly like a single sound.
- Names and loanwords. No rule covers Siobhan, Worcestershire or a brand invented last Tuesday.
The counter handles a list of the usual troublemakers and gets ordinary prose right. When a haiku line comes out one syllable off, count the doubtful word yourself.
Counting syllables for haiku and poetry
The most common reason to count syllables is form. An English haiku is written in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables; a limerick runs roughly 8-8-5-5-8; iambic pentameter is ten syllables in five unstressed–stressed pairs.
Practical way to use the tool: paste one line at a time rather than the whole poem. The counter gives a total, not a per-line breakdown, and in poetry the line is the unit that matters. Then read the line aloud — your ear is the tiebreaker whenever the number looks off by one.
Syllables per word: the readability shortcut
The two most-used readability formulas — Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid grade level — are built on two inputs: how long your sentences are and how many syllables your words carry. That second number is on this page.
- Under 1.5 syllables/word: plain, direct English. Where most emails and web copy should sit.
- 1.5–1.8: normal professional prose.
- Over 1.8: Latinate and heavy. Usually means utilize, implementation and subsequently where use, rollout and then would do.
If the number is high, the fix is vocabulary, not sentence length. The readability checker shows the full score, and the sentence counter covers the other half of the formula.
Long words are a second-language tell
Writers working in a second language reach for the longer word, because the longer word is the one that was taught. It's why non-native English often reads as more formal than intended: I would like to request assistance regarding instead of can you help me with. The syllables-per-word cell catches this before a reader does.
Limato and the paraphrasing tool fix it in one pass — they swap Latinate vocabulary for the words a native would actually use, typically cutting a third of the length.
Syllables in English vs Spanish
Spanish is the opposite case: its syllables are fully rule-based, so a program can split every word exactly and show you the result — mur-cié-la-go, cons-truir, pa-ís. That's what our contador de sílabas does, complete with the diphthong and hiatus rules and a word-by-word split preview.
If you're learning either language, the contrast is worth knowing: in Spanish, counting syllables tells you where the written accent goes. In English, it only tells you how heavy the word sounds.
Write it right, not just count it
Limato's Chrome extension rewrites clunky non-native English into natural, native-sounding text on any website — Gmail, Slack, LinkedIn, Notion. 20 free rewrites a day.
Add to Chrome — FreeFrequently asked questions
How do you count syllables in a word?
Say the word aloud and count the vowel sounds — each one is a syllable. In writing, count the vowel groups and subtract the ones that aren't pronounced: the silent final -e (make = 1), the -ed after most consonants (hopped = 1), and the -es after a non-hissing sound (cakes = 1).
Is this syllable counter accurate?
It's accurate for ordinary prose and honest about the rest. English syllable counts depend on pronunciation, not spelling, so words like fire, every and chocolate genuinely vary between speakers. Treat the total as a very good estimate and check the odd word by ear.
How many syllables should a haiku line have?
An English haiku is 5-7-5: five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third. Paste one line at a time — the counter gives a total for whatever is in the box, not a per-line breakdown.
What is a good syllables-per-word average?
Under 1.5 reads as plain, direct English; 1.5 to 1.8 is normal professional prose; above 1.8 is heavy and usually means long Latinate words where short ones would work.
Is my text stored or sent anywhere?
No. All counting happens locally in your browser with JavaScript. Your text is never uploaded, logged, or saved.
Does it work for Spanish or other languages?
For Spanish, use limato.app/es/contador-de-silabas/ — Spanish syllables follow written rules, so that version splits every word exactly (ca-mi-no) instead of estimating. This page's logic is tuned for English.