How does Italian syllable counting work?

Each syllable has one vowel nucleus. The counter scans runs of adjacent vowels and decides whether they merge into one syllable (a diphthong) or split into separate syllables (a hiatus). Consonants attach to the nearest nucleus and do not add syllables.

What is the difference between a diphthong and a hiatus?

A diphthong is two vowels pronounced in one syllable, formed when a weak vowel (i, u) combines with a strong vowel (a, e, o), as in chia-ve. A hiatus is two vowels in separate syllables, formed when two strong vowels meet (ma-e-stro) or a weak vowel is stressed (po-e-sì-a).

Which vowels are strong and which are weak?

The strong vowels are a, e and o; the weak vowels are i and u. A weak vowel beside a strong one usually glides into a diphthong, but two strong vowels always form a hiatus and count as two syllables.

Why should I write accents on stressed weak vowels?

Plain spelling does not show stress, so paura and poesia look like they have diphthongs even though they are pronounced pa-u-ra and po-e-si-a with a hiatus. Writing the accent (paùra, poesìa) tells the counter to split those vowels into separate syllables.

Is the analysis done in my browser?

Yes. The syllable counting runs entirely on your device, so the text you enter is never uploaded to a server.

Italian Syllable Counter

Counting syllables in Italian matters for poetry and metre, for teaching pronunciation, and for hyphenation. Italian syllabification turns on whether neighbouring vowels form a diphthong (one syllable) or a hiatus (two), and this tool applies those rules to count the syllables in each word.

How it works

Every syllable is built around a single vowel nucleus, so the counter works by scanning each maximal run of adjacent vowels and deciding how many nuclei it contains. Italian vowels split into two groups: the strong vowels a, e, o and the weak vowels i, u.

The rules for a vowel run are:

weak + strong   (ia, ie, io, iu, ua, ue, uo)  → diphthong   → 1 syllable
strong + weak   (ai, ei, oi, au, eu)           → diphthong   → 1 syllable
weak + weak     (iu, ui)                        → diphthong   → 1 syllable
strong + strong (ae, ao, ea, eo, oa, oe)        → hiatus      → 2 syllables
accented weak   (ìa, aù …)                      → hiatus      → 2 syllables

Three vowels around a strong centre form a triphthong and still count as one syllable, as in miei. Consonants simply attach to the nearest nucleus and never add a count.

Example

chiave is chia-ve = 2, uomo is uo-mo = 2, cuore is cuo-re = 2, and maestro is ma-e-stro = 3 because the two strong vowels a and e form a hiatus. With the stress marked, poesìa is po-e-sì-a = 4.

A note on stress

The single ambiguity is the stressed weak vowel. In ordinary spelling poesia and paura hide their stress, so the algorithm would read the i and u as glides and undercount. Writing the accent — poesìa, paùra — makes the hiatus explicit and gives the correct count. For everyday borrowed words and proper names, treat the result as a strong first pass and check by ear where stress is irregular.

Italian Syllable Counter

Email me this result

How it works

Example

A note on stress