Chinese Character Counter (Free Online Tool)
Count Chinese characters, unique characters, sentences, and reading time. Free online Hanzi counter for essays, homework, subtitles, and social posts.
Paste Chinese text above to count characters instantly. It counts Hanzi (Chinese characters) separately from total characters, plus unique characters, sentences, and an estimated reading time — updating as you type.
Why a Chinese-specific counter
A normal word counter miscounts Chinese. Chinese does not put spaces between words, so "word count" tools give meaningless numbers. What matters in Chinese is the character count — that is how length limits, homework requirements, and reading effort are measured.
This tool reports what actually matters:
- Chinese characters (Hanzi) — the real length measure, ignoring spaces and punctuation
- Unique characters — a rough proxy for how varied or difficult the text is
- Sentences — split on 。！？ and Latin terminators
- Total characters — everything except whitespace
- Reading time — an estimate at a fluent pace
Common uses
- Checking an essay or homework hits a character requirement (e.g. "write 300 字")
- Fitting text into subtitle or caption limits
- Staying inside a social post limit (Weibo, etc.)
- Gauging how long a reading passage will take
From counting to reading
Once you know a passage's length, the next question is whether you can read it. Paste the same text into Pinyora and every character becomes tappable — pinyin, English, and audio — so a long text stops being intimidating.
- Tap any word for pinyin, meaning, and audio
- Save words you do not know yet
- See how much of the text is within your known vocabulary
Open Pinyora and turn any Chinese text into reading practice.
Frequently asked questions
Does it count spaces and punctuation? The Chinese-character count ignores them. "Total characters" excludes whitespace but includes punctuation.
How is unique character count useful? More unique characters in the same length usually means denser, harder text — a quick difficulty signal.
How is reading time estimated? Roughly 300 Chinese characters per minute, a typical fluent pace. Learners will read slower; treat it as a relative length gauge.