Word counter and reading time calculator

Word counter: words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and paragraphs, plus reading time at 238 wpm and speaking time at 150 wpm.

Aktualisiert Geprüfte Beispiele: 4

Weitere Optionen
words/min
238 words a minute is the average silent reading rate for English non-fiction (Brysbaert, 2019).
words/min
About 150 words a minute is typical conversational English (National Center for Voice and Speech).
Ausprobieren
Words
Words: 41
Ganze Zahl; Zum nächsten Wert, bei Gleichstand von null weg
Characters (with spaces)
234
Characters (without spaces)
195
Sentences
4
Paragraphs
2
Reading time
10.33 s
Speaking time
16.4 s
Average words per sentence
10.3

41 words take about 10 s to read at 238 words a minute and 16 s to say aloud at 150. Sentences average 10.3 words.

Words per sentence

1: 4412: 151523: 7734: 15154
So wird gerechnet S
  1. Counting rules

    A word is any run of characters between spaces that contains a letter or digit, so “well-known” is one word and a lone dash is none. Characters with spaces exclude line breaks. A sentence ends at . ! ? or … followed by a space. Each non-empty line is a paragraph.

  2. Reading time

    41238 min=10.3 s\frac{41}{238}\ \text{min} = 10.3\ \text{s}

    10.33 s

  3. Speaking time

    41150 min=16.4 s\frac{41}{150}\ \text{min} = 16.4\ \text{s}

    16.4 s

Über Word counter and reading time calculator

The counter splits the text at spaces, and any run that contains a letter or digit is a word, so "well-known" counts once and a lone dash not at all. Characters are counted with and without spaces, a sentence ends at . ! ? or …, and each non-empty line is a paragraph. Reading and speaking times are the word count divided by a words-per-minute rate.

The default rates are 238 words a minute for silent reading, the average for English non-fiction in Brysbaert's 2019 review of 190 studies, and 150 words a minute for speech, the US average given by the National Center for Voice and Speech. The sample text has 41 words: about 10 seconds to read and 16 seconds to say aloud.

Other tools treat dashes, slashes and web addresses differently, so their totals can differ by a few words. The chart marks sentences longer than 25 words.

Durchgerechnete Beispiele

Default two-paragraph text

Text
Measure twice, cut once. The old carpenter's rule applies to writing too: pla…
Words
41
Characters (with spaces)
234
Characters (without spaces)
195
Sentences
4
Paragraphs
2
Reading time
10.33 s
Speaking time
16.4 s
Average words per sentence
10.3

Prüfquelle: Python 3.8 re/str implementation of the same counting rules: 41 words; 41/238 × 60 s

Two words, no end punctuation

Text
Hello world
Reading speed
120 words/min
Speaking speed
60 words/min
Words
2
Characters (with spaces)
11
Characters (without spaces)
10
Sentences
1
Reading time
1 s
Speaking time
2 s

Prüfquelle: Hand count; 2/120 min = 1 s, 2/60 min = 2 s

Accents, a dash, a hyphenated word and double spaces

Text
Café au lait — a well-known drink! Is it naïve? Yes.
Words
10
Characters (with spaces)
52
Characters (without spaces)
42
Sentences
3
Paragraphs
2

Prüfquelle: Python 3.8 str.split/isalnum count: the lone dash is not a word, well-known is one

Quotes, ellipsis and brackets end sentences

Text
She said "Stop." Then she left… Really?! (Yes.) End
Words
9
Sentences
5

Prüfquelle: Python 3.8 re.split on [.!?…] plus closing quote/bracket and whitespace

Fragen

How long does it take to read 1,000 words?

About 4 minutes 12 seconds at 238 words a minute, the average adult silent reading rate for English non-fiction in Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies. Most adults read non-fiction at 175–300 words a minute, so the same text takes between 3 minutes 20 seconds and 5 minutes 43 seconds; fiction averages 260 words a minute.

How many words is a 5-minute speech?

About 750 words at 150 words a minute, the average speaking rate for US English given by the National Center for Voice and Speech. Reading a script aloud averages 183 words a minute (Brysbaert, 2019), so 5 minutes of reading aloud covers about 915 words. Pauses for slides, questions or applause reduce the word budget.

Do spaces count as characters?

In "characters with spaces", yes: every letter, digit, punctuation mark and space counts, but line breaks do not. "Characters without spaces" leaves out all whitespace. The default text has 234 characters with spaces and 195 without, so check which of the two a length limit refers to before trimming.

What counts as a word?

Any run of characters between spaces that contains at least one letter or digit. "Well-known" and "don't" are one word each, "2026" is one word, and a standalone dash or bullet is none. "Café au lait — a well-known drink!" therefore counts as 6 words. Word processors can differ by a few words on dashes, slashes and web addresses.

Wie genau arbeitet „Word counter and reading time calculator“?

Die Genauigkeit hängt von Ihren Eingaben und den Annahmen der Methode ab. Die Dezimalrechnung nutzt 50 signifikante Stellen, doch Schätzungen, numerische Verfahren und Quelldaten können ungenauer sein. Die angezeigte Rundung beseitigt diese Grenzen nicht. Anhand unabhängiger Quellen geprüfte Rechenbeispiele: 4. Beispielsweise wird „Default two-paragraph text“ anhand von Python 3.8 re/str implementation of the same counting rules: 41 words; 41/238 × 60 s geprüft.

Woher stammt die Methode?

Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? Journal of Memory and Language 109, 104047; National Center for Voice and Speech — speaking rate.

Über diesen Rechner

tread=wordsreading wpm mintspeak=wordsspeaking wpm min\begin{gathered}t_{\text{read}} = \frac{\text{words}}{\text{reading wpm}}\ \text{min} \\ t_{\text{speak}} = \frac{\text{words}}{\text{speaking wpm}}\ \text{min}\end{gathered}

Quellen

  1. Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? Journal of Memory and Language 109, 104047
  2. National Center for Voice and Speech — speaking rate

Anhand von Quellen geprüft

Dieser Rechner enthält 4 Rechenbeispiele mit Ergebnissen aus unabhängigen Quellen. Sie laufen in der Testsuite und können auch hier ausgeführt werden.

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