Word & Character Counter Real-time word count and reading time, accurate for Chinese, Japanese & Korean too
Your Text
Detected space-delimited text — using word count as the primary unit
What is the Word & Character Counter?
This is a free online tool that instantly counts words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and estimated reading time as you type or paste text — no button clicks required. It's useful for keeping articles within a length limit, checking social media caption or ad copy limits, reviewing essay paragraph structure, or simply estimating how long a piece of writing will take to read.
Why is "word count" different for Chinese, Japanese and Korean?
Most Western word counters split text into words using whitespace — for example, "Be Good Tool" becomes 3 words when split by spaces. But Chinese, Japanese and Korean (collectively "CJK" languages) don't use spaces between words at all. Applying a space-based word count to a block of CJK text often misreads the entire paragraph as a single "word," which is meaningless.
That's why this tool automatically detects the input: text made mostly of CJK characters is counted primarily by character count (which is what native readers actually mean when they say "this article is 500 characters long"), while space-delimited languages such as English, French or Spanish are counted primarily by word count. Both numbers are always shown side by side for comparison. Learn more about how different languages segment text in the Wikipedia articles on word count and Chinese word segmentation.
How is reading time estimated?
The estimated reading time adjusts its baseline depending on the detected language type: CJK text is estimated using characters read per minute, while space-delimited languages are estimated using an average English words-per-minute baseline (see the research summarized on words per minute). This figure is only an estimate — actual reading speed varies by reader and content difficulty.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: How are sentences and paragraphs counted?
Sentences are split by terminal punctuation (periods, exclamation marks, question marks, and their full-width CJK equivalents). Paragraphs are detected by blank-line breaks in your text; if there are no blank lines, the whole text is treated as one paragraph.
Q2: What happens with mixed CJK and English text?
The tool checks the proportion of CJK characters in your entire text to decide which unit — character count or word count — should be treated as primary. Both numbers remain visible even for mixed text, so you can reference whichever fits your needs.
Q3: Is my text uploaded to a server?
No. All counting happens instantly in your own browser — nothing is sent to or stored on any server, and the text is cleared when you reload the page. You can safely paste private text for counting. This tool is completely free, with no account required and no usage limits.