German Syllable Counter
Count syllables in German words. Recognizes ei, ie, au, eu, äu diphthongs and umlauted vowels.
Counts German syllables with diphthongs and umlauts.
| Word | Syllables | Breakdown |
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German syllabification rules
German syllables are organized around vowel nuclei. The eight vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u, ä, ö, ü) plus y each form potential syllable centers. The five recognized diphthongs are ei, ie, au, eu, äu — each pronounced as a single glide and counted as one nucleus.
Word-initial stress is the strong default: most native German words stress the first syllable ('Wasser, 'Fenster). Loanwords and Latin-derived words follow source-language stress (Universi'tät, Informa'tion).
German is famous for productive compounding: Donau·dampf·schiff·fahrt·s·gesellschaft·s·kapitän chains seven nouns plus connecting -s- morphemes. The syllable counter just sums the vowel nuclei across the whole compound (this example has 14 syllables). For morpheme-level breakdowns, the morphology analyzer is a better fit.