Formula
words = runs of letters and digits, keeping ' - . , inside a wordreading time = words ÷ 238 per minute
- Characters count what you see (an emoji is one character).
- Speaking time uses 150 words per minute.
Count each separate word, then convert to time using average reading and speaking speeds.
Worked example
A short passage
- Your text
- Hello world! This is a test. Second paragraph here.
Words
9
Characters: 52
Characters (no spaces): 43
Sentences: 3
How it works
Words follow the convention used by word processors: don't, stop-gap, 3.5 and 1,000 each count as one word, while a spaced dash separates words. Characters are counted as users see them, so an emoji or an accented letter made of two code points counts once. For languages written without spaces (Chinese, Japanese, Thai) the browser's dictionary-based segmenter is used.
Reading time uses about 238 words per minute, the average silent-reading speed reported for adults in English, and speaking time uses 150 words per minute; both vary a lot between people. The list of most frequent words skips very common words. To change capitalisation use the Case Converter; for formatted code see the HTML Formatter and JSON Formatter.
Assumptions and limits
- Counts can differ slightly from other tools because word boundaries are a matter of convention.