French Word Counter

Paste French text and read words (mots), characters (signes) and sentences (phrases), with l’ami counted as one word.

French Word Counter

Sample text. Type or paste to replace it.

Words (mots)
26
Characters (signes)
179
Without spaces (espaces non comprises)
148
Spaces (espaces)
31
Sentences (phrases)
5
Paragraphs (paragraphes)
1
Lines (lignes)
1
Letters (lettres)
133
Punctuation (ponctuation)
15
Bytes in UTF-8 (octets)
202

More options a limit for words (mots)

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How it works

This French word counter gives ten counts, from words (mots) to characters (signes) with and without spaces. An elision like l’ami is one word, and a ? behind its French space is none.

Read the full guide

26 mots, 179 signes

The sample counts 26 mots, 179 signes, 5 phrases. Count by hand and you may get more, since n’ouvrez, l’intérieur, a-t-il and rendez-la each hold two dictionary words. A counter that splits at apostrophes and hyphens reads 33. Paste your own text over it. A maximum typed into Limit for words (mots) shows how many are left.

Word counter French spaces count as signs

French sets a space before ? ! ; and : and inside « and ». Each one is a sign, so the sample is 179 signs as set and 173 closed up the English way.

Tips
  • Since 1990 a number may be hyphenated throughout: trente-et-un is one word, trente et un three. Pick one spelling.
  • For a length in feuillets, divide Characters (signes) by 1,500, about what 25 lines of 60 signs hold.
  • Check Sentences (phrases) by eye when a text reports speech: « Où vas-tu ? » demanda-t-il. counts as two.

Questions and answers

Is l’ami one word or two?

One here. The counter splits at spaces, and an elision has none, so l’ami, j’ai, qu’il and aujourd’hui each count once, whichever apostrophe you type. A marker who counts dictionary words would call l’ami two, so ask which way yours counts.

What does signes, espaces comprises mean?

Signs with spaces included: every character counts, and so does every space, the French ones before ? and : too. Read Characters (signes). A length without them is espaces non comprises. Spanish, Korean, Japanese and Arabic are under word counters.

Does the space before a question mark count as a character?

Yes. Every space is a sign, the narrow no-break kind included, so Où ? is four signs and Où? is three, both one word. Without spaces (espaces non comprises) leaves them out.

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What the 10 counts mean

Length, the numbers a limit is set in 3

  • Characters (signes) All the characters, spaces and line breaks among them: what a French brief calls signes, espaces comprises. French sets a space before ? ! ; and : and inside « and », and each of those spaces is a sign, so « Où ? » is 8 signs for a word of two letters. The press measures copy in feuillets of 25 lines of 60 signs, about 1,500 signs to a full one, and translators in publishing are paid by the same unit. An accented letter is one sign, and so is œ.
  • Without spaces (espaces non comprises) The same count with every space, tab and line break removed, the two no-break spaces of French typography included: U+00A0 no-break space and U+202F narrow no-break space. So this number stays put when a text is respaced to the French rules, while the one above moves. It is the figure to give when a limit says espaces non comprises. The sample reads 148 here against 179.
  • Words (mots) A word here is a run of characters with a space on each side and a letter or a digit inside it. An elided form stays with the word it leans on, so l’ami, j’ai and qu’il are one word each, with a straight apostrophe or a curly one, and so is aujourd’hui. Hyphens do not split either: arc-en-ciel is one and y a-t-il is two. A number joined the way the 1990 spelling allows, trente-et-un, counts once, where trente et un is three. A ? or ! standing behind its space is no word.
Show all 10 counts (7 more)

Structure 3

  • Lines (lignes) Lines as typed, empty ones too, so a text with blank lines between its paragraphs shows more lines than paragraphs. The letter described above, with its two blank lines, is 6 lines and 4 paragraphs. These are not the 60-sign lines of a feuillet: a paragraph typed without a break is one line however long it runs. A break left after the last word adds a line.
  • Paragraphs (paragraphes) A paragraph is any line with text on it, and the blank lines between them are not counted. French dialogue marks each change of speaker with a dash, usually on a new line, so an exchange of three replies is three paragraphs and at least three sentences. A letter with a greeting, one paragraph of body, a closing formula and a signature shows four. If the text came out of a PDF with a break after every printed line, each printed line is counted as a paragraph.
  • Sentences (phrases) A sentence ends at a full stop, ? or !, with or without the French space before the mark, and at a line break. The full stop of M. does not end one, and Mme, Mlle and Dr take no full stop in French. This page also knows MM., cf., av. and apr. (as in av. J.-C.) and the month forms janv., févr., avr., juil. or juill., oct., nov. and déc., with the shorter jan. and fév. It leaves out sept., because sept is also seven, and etc., because a sentence can end on it. Two things still fool it. Hyphenated initials before a surname, J.-P. Sartre, add a sentence. So does a question that closes inside guillemets before its sentence is over: « Où vas-tu ? » demanda-t-il. counts as two.

What the text is made of 3

  • Letters (lettres) Letters alone, without digits, spaces, apostrophes or hyphens. French writes with 26 letters, five diacritics and two ligatures. An accented letter is one letter, so été is three. The ligature œ, which French spelling requires in cœur, sœur and œuf, is one as well: cœur has four letters here and coeur, typed without it, has five. The æ of ex æquo is one. The apostrophe of l’ami is not a letter, so that word has four.
  • Punctuation (ponctuation) Every punctuation character. French spends many of them inside words: the apostrophe of an elision and the hyphens of an inversion all count, so Qu’est-ce que c’est ? holds four marks and a-t-il holds two. The curly apostrophe (U+2019 right single quotation mark) and the straight one (U+0027 apostrophe) count alike. « and » are one each (U+00AB and U+00BB), and the spaces inside them are not punctuation. € is a symbol to Unicode and is not counted. % is punctuation and is.
  • Spaces (espaces) Every space of any kind, with tabs and line breaks counted in. French needs more of them than English: « Où ? », correctly spaced, holds three and not one gap between words. The ordinary space, the no-break space and the narrow no-break space count one each, so the number does not depend on which of them was typed. In typography the word espace is feminine when it means the character, which is why the phrase is espaces comprises. The sample holds 31, six of them no-break.

How the text is stored 1

  • Bytes in UTF-8 (octets) What the text weighs in octets, the French word for bytes, when it is stored as UTF-8. Unaccented letters, digits, the ordinary space and the straight apostrophe take one byte each. Every accented letter, œ, «, » and the no-break space take two. The curly apostrophe, the narrow no-break space and € take three. So carefully set French is heavier than the same words typed plainly: the sample is 202 bytes as set, and 185 with ordinary spaces and straight apostrophes.

How this list was compiled: Own work. The 10 counts are the ones this page shows, picked for how French length is set (in mots, and in signes with or without spaces) and for what French punctuation does to each. Every example in a note was run through the counter this page uses, with the language set to French and the short forms this page adds (MM, cf, av, apr and ten month forms), on 2026-09-19 and again on 2026-09-20 with the three month forms added that day, and a note went in only when the result matched. Character names, code points and categories: https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0. Elision and the words that take it, with aujourd’hui and quelqu’un: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elision_(French). The no-break space before : and inside guillemets and the narrow no-break space before ; ? and !: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space. The gender of espace in typography, and U+00A0 and U+202F in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espace_(typographie). The feuillet of 25 lines of 60 signs, about 1,500 signs with spaces, and its use for paying journalists and translators: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuillet_(journalisme). Length set in signes, and the need to say whether blanks are included: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signe_(typographie). When a French abbreviation takes a full stop (M. but Mme, Dr, Me), and that the stop of an abbreviation at the end of a sentence doubles as the final one: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abr%C3%A9viation. MM.: https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/MM. The forms av. J.-C. and apr. J.-C.: https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/av._J.-C. The form cf.: https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/cf. Month abbreviations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_in_France and, for janv., févr. and juill., https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mois (checked 2026-09-20). Hyphens in compounds, in inversions with -t- and, since 1990, between all the parts of a number: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait_d%27union. The -t- of inversion: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-t-. The 26 letters, five diacritics and two ligatures, and the words that require œ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_orthography. Guillemets, their spacing, and the dash that marks a change of speaker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillemet. Octet: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octet. One, two and three byte ranges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8. How the browser finds words, sentences and characters: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl/Segmenter. All checked 2026-09-19 unless a later date is given. Licence: own work