Speech time calculator
How long your words take to say, at the pace you choose — and how many words fit the minutes you have. Paste the text to count it. It runs in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and there's no account.
Words
0
Speaking time
0 s
at 150 words a minute, a default
Reading time
0 s
at 240 words a minute, the page's default for silent reading
Words to write: 750 at 150 words a minute, a default.
Where the paces come from
The three paces — 110, 150 and 190 words a minute — are this page's defaults: round numbers for a careful delivery, an ordinary one and a quick one. Nobody's speech was timed to set them. Your own pace is the one that matters: read a minute of your script aloud, count the words you got through, and type that number.
Reading time uses 240 words a minute, a default in the same sense: silent reading is quicker than speech, and how much quicker depends on the reader and the text.
How it counts
- Words
- Text written with spaces is split on them, and anything with a letter or a digit in it is a word: “well-known” and “3.5” count once, a dash on its own not at all. A timestamp opening a line or written in brackets, and a cue arrow, are not words; a time inside a sentence (“we start at 12:30”) is one, since it is said.
- Chinese, Japanese and Korean
- Each character counts as one: Chinese and Japanese are written without spaces between words, and pace in all three is customarily given per character or syllable. For these, type a pace in characters a minute — the presets are for languages written with spaces.
- Thai, Lao, Khmer and Burmese
- Written without spaces too, but with words several characters long, so a run is split with your browser's own dictionary where it has one, and counts as one word where it has not.
- Subtitle files
- A SubRip or WebVTT file pasted whole is counted by what its cues say: cue numbers and timestamps are not words.
Questions
Where do the paces come from?
They are this page's defaults: round numbers for a careful, an ordinary and a quick delivery in English. Nobody's speech was timed to set them, so if you know your own pace — read a minute of your script aloud and count the words — type it, and the page uses that instead.
How many words is a 5-minute speech?
About 750 at 150 words a minute, this page's default average pace — a round number nobody's speech was timed to set. Pauses for slides, questions or applause mean fewer words. Type your minutes and your own pace above for your figure.
How many words a minute do people speak?
It depends on the speaker, the language and the occasion — a eulogy and an auction are both speech — which is why this page offers three defaults and a box for your own figure rather than one answer.
How is reading time worked out?
At 240 words a minute, a default for silent reading in the same sense as the speaking paces: reading is quicker than speech, and how much quicker depends on the reader and the text.
Does it count Chinese or Japanese?
Each character counts as one, since pace in those languages is given per character. Type a pace in characters a minute; the presets are for languages written with spaces.
Is it free?
Yes, with no account and nothing to install.
Have the recording, not the script?
txscribe transcribes audio and video with a timestamp on every word, so the word count and the minutes come from the recording itself. Unlike this page, that part runs in the cloud.
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