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Writing word counter for the TCF and TEF Canada

Count your words against the real limit for each task. The TCF publishes a floor and a ceiling for all three of its tasks. The TEF publishes a floor and no maximum whatsoever, whatever other preparation sites tell you.

Tâche 1. A short message that asks someone to do something. No official time for this task on its own: 60 minutes covers the whole paper.

0words60 words minimum

A short message that asks someone to do something.

min 60aim 100max 120

Elisions and hyphenated compounds count once here, so aujourd’hui and c’est-à-dire are one word each. That is the least generous reading: clear the floor on this count and you clear it on any of them.

The limits above are the ones published by the test operators: TCF Canada, Tâche 1 60 to 120, Tâche 2 120 to 150, Tâche 3 120 to 180; TEF Canada, Section A 80 and up, Section B 200 and up. Confirm them in the current candidate guide before your sitting. Where a maximum is shown as absent it is absent from the official documentation, not merely unknown to us.

Word counts are the only part of a writing paper that is public, precise and mechanical. Everything else a marker does involves judgement; this one is arithmetic, which makes it the easiest requirement to fail and the easiest to stop failing. Write the two numbers for your task on your rough paper during the first minute, before you plan anything.

The two exams are not symmetrical, and the difference matters more than it looks. The TCF gives you a floor and a ceiling on each of its three tasks, so you can write too much as well as too little. The TEF gives you a floor and nothing above it. If a preparation site has told you the TEF caps section B at two hundred and fifty words, it invented that number. The practical risk runs the other way: a candidate who believes in a ceiling stops writing while marks were still available.

What no operator publishes is what counts as a word. Whether aujourd’hui is one or two, whether your greeting and signature count, whether a hyphenated compound splits: none of it is documented. That is not a reason to guess more carefully. It is a reason to stay far enough from the bound that the answer cannot affect you, which is why this tool marks a target in the upper middle of each range rather than celebrating the moment you cross a line.

Length is where candidates stop losing marks, not where they start gaining them. Once you are clear of the bounds the count has nothing more to tell you, and the work moves to structure and register: the TCF writing tasks and the two TEF sections set out what each one is actually marked on.

Questions

About the writing word counter

How many words does the TCF Canada expression écrite need?

Three tasks, each with its own floor and ceiling. Tâche 1 runs 60 to 120 words, tâche 2 120 to 150, and tâche 3 120 to 180. Sixty minutes covers all three together, and no official split per task is published, so how you divide the hour is your decision and part of what is being tested.

How many words does the TEF Canada expression écrite need?

Section A asks for at least 80 words in 25 minutes, and section B for at least 200 in 35. Both figures are floors. The operator publishes no maximum for either section.

What is the maximum for the TEF Canada writing sections?

There is not one. The operator publishes a minimum and stops there, so any site quoting you a TEF word ceiling made it up. That does not make length free: a hundred and twenty words that hold together beat two hundred and fifty that wander, and a marker reads the argument rather than the count. But you will not be penalised for passing a limit that was never set.

What actually counts as one word?

Nobody publishes the definition, which is precisely why this matters. Does aujourd'hui count once or twice? What about the greeting line, or your signature? This tool counts an elision or a hyphenated compound as a single word, which is the least generous reading available, so a count that clears the floor here clears it on any convention a marker might use.

Should I aim for the minimum?

No, and this is the single most useful habit on the paper. Sitting within a dozen words of a published bound stakes your mark on a counting convention you cannot look up. Aim for the upper middle of each range instead, which the tool marks for you, and the question never arises.

Is being under the minimum really fatal?

It is the one part of the paper that can cost you before anybody assesses your French. Word counts are among the few requirements that are public, precise and mechanical, so they are also the easiest to fail on and the easiest to avoid failing on. Write the numbers on your rough paper in the first minute.

Does this count the same way the examiner will?

It cannot promise that, because the operators do not publish their method. It counts conservatively so that its number is a floor rather than a flattering estimate. Use it to stay clear of the bounds, not to prove you cleared one by two words.

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