Softonic

Haiku Checker

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A haiku lives or dies by its syllable count. Paste your three lines here and the checker breaks each word into syllables, totals the line, and tells you which lines hit the traditional 5-7-5 rule and which need a tweak. Useful for classroom exercises, English-language haiku clubs, and anyone drafting short-form verse.

How to check a haiku

  1. 1

    Paste the three lines

    Enter line one, line two and line three separated by line breaks: no extra punctuation needed.

  2. 2

    Read the per-line counts

    The checker reports the syllable count of each line as a pattern, for example 5-7-6, so you can see at a glance which line is off.

  3. 3

    Check the verdict

    The checker ends with a verdict: the haiku pattern is valid only when the three counts are 5, 7 and 5.

  4. 4

    Adjust and recheck

    Swap longer words for shorter synonyms until every line matches 5, 7 and 5.

What counts as a haiku

The classical Japanese haiku is built from 17 on (phonetic units) arranged as 5-7-5. English-language haiku has adapted the form, and most teachers and anthologies use syllables as the English equivalent.

The 5-7-5 target

Line Target syllables Example (Basho, tr.)
1 5 An old silent pond
2 7 A frog jumps into the pond
3 5 Splash, silence again

How syllables are counted here

The checker uses a vowel-group heuristic that handles English reasonably well:

  • Count each group of adjacent vowels as one syllable: beautiful -> beau / ti / ful -> 3.
  • Drop a silent final e: make counts as 1, not 2.
  • Treat y as a vowel: rhythm counts as 1, yes counts as 1.

The heuristic is not perfect for names, loanwords or dialect pronunciations, so treat its counts as a guide rather than a final verdict.

Beyond counting

Classical haiku also expects two more elements traditional English haiku often ignore:

  • A kigo (season word), cherry blossom for spring, cicada for summer, snow for winter.
  • A kireji (cutting word), rendered in English as a dash, ellipsis or line break that creates a pivot between two images.

The checker verifies only the syllable structure; the seasonal reference and the cut are judgement calls for the poet.

Frequently Asked Questions

English syllable splitting is genuinely ambiguous. Words like “fire” and “hour” are one or two syllables depending on dialect. The checker applies one simple rule to every word, so its count can differ from your own. If a line seems off, reword it and check again.

The vowel-group heuristic works best for English. For Spanish, Italian or Japanese romaji the counts will usually be close, but classical Japanese haiku counts on (morae), not syllables, so counts there are only approximate.

Modern haiku poets frequently write shorter forms (sometimes 3-5-3) that better match the brevity of Japanese on-counts. The checker verifies the classical 5-7-5 because that is what most English-language assignments ask for.

Contractions are treated as written: “don’t” is one syllable, “I’ve” is one syllable, “haven’t” is two. If you want a spoken-form count, expand the contraction before pasting.

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