Donaldson R F Syllable Counter
Count syllables in a word, a line of poetry or a full text — in English or Portuguese.
Word by word
How the counting works — and its limits
Syllables are counted with rules rather than a dictionary. In English the counter counts groups of vowels and then adjusts for common patterns: a silent final “e”, endings like -ed and -es, and vowel pairs that split (idea, science). In Portuguese it counts vowel nuclei while treating diphthongs (pai, mão, quatro) as one syllable and hiatuses (teatro, saída) as two. This is right for the large majority of words, but English spelling has many exceptions and Portuguese hiatuses are not always marked, so treat the result as a very good estimate — for poetry or lyrics, check unusual words by ear. The Flesch reading-ease figure (English) is 206.835 − 1.015 × words per sentence − 84.6 × syllables per word; higher means easier to read, and 60–70 is plain English. For Portuguese the same formula is shown as an approximation. Your text stays in your browser.