diff --git a/klausur-service/backend/cv_syllable_detect.py b/klausur-service/backend/cv_syllable_detect.py
index cc43cf9..c1e1acc 100644
--- a/klausur-service/backend/cv_syllable_detect.py
+++ b/klausur-service/backend/cv_syllable_detect.py
@@ -150,8 +150,11 @@ def _syllabify_text(text: str, hyph_de, hyph_en) -> str:
     if not text:
         return text
 
-    # Skip cells that contain IPA transcription characters
-    if _IPA_RE.search(text):
+    # Skip cells that contain IPA transcription characters outside brackets.
+    # Bracket content like [bɪltʃøn] is programmatically inserted and should
+    # not block syllabification of the surrounding text.
+    text_no_brackets = re.sub(r'\[[^\]]*\]', '', text)
+    if _IPA_RE.search(text_no_brackets):
         return text
 
     # Phase 1: strip existing pipe dividers for clean normalization