Why are there two different letter counts?

Software counts characters one code point at a time, so it sees ng as two letters. But in the Filipino Abakada alphabet, ng is a single letter. The tool shows both: the raw character count and the linguistically correct Abakada count where every ng collapses to one letter.

How does it count the ng digraph?

It scans for every occurrence of ng (case-insensitive) and treats each one as one Abakada letter rather than two. The number of ng digraphs found is shown separately, and it is exactly how much smaller the Abakada count is compared with the raw letter count.

Does it count spaces and punctuation?

The raw character count includes everything you type. The no-spaces figure removes whitespace. The Abakada letter count counts only letters (including ñ), so spaces, digits and punctuation are excluded from it.

What is the UTF-8 byte count for?

UTF-8 bytes matter for storage limits, database columns, and SMS or API payloads. Plain Tagalog letters are one byte each, but characters like ñ take two bytes, so the byte count can exceed the character count.

Is my text uploaded anywhere?

No. All counting happens locally in your browser. The text you paste is never sent to a server or stored.

Tagalog Character Counter

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Counting Tagalog the way the alphabet works

Counting characters in Tagalog has a twist that trips up generic tools: the ng digraph is one letter in the Abakada alphabet, not two. A word like ngayong is six letters in Abakada (ng-a-y-o-ng) but eight code points to a computer. This counter reports both numbers so you get the figure you actually need.

How it works

The tool measures the text in several ways:

Raw characters counts Unicode code points using Array.from, which is what a textarea, database column, or character-limit field sees.
Abakada letters first collapses every ng (case-insensitive) into a single unit, then counts letters only. So each ng contributes one letter instead of two.
ng digraphs found is the exact difference between the two letter totals.
UTF-8 bytes is computed with the browser’s TextEncoder, reflecting real storage and transmission size.

Tips and notes

For example, the sentence Ang mga bata has two ng digraphs (in Ang and mga? — note mga has no ng; in Ang and any ng word), and the Abakada count drops by one for each. The ñ used in Spanish loanwords (e.g. Mañana) is treated as a single letter and counts as two UTF-8 bytes. If you need word counts or reading time instead, use the companion Tagalog Word Counter and Reading Time tools.