Vowels and Consonants?

I tell the kids that “Y” is a consonant. But when it acts like a vowel, we treat it like one.

Water is a liquid. But when it freezes, we treat it like a solid.

“Y” has always been a consonant. I believe the rule is that “y” is sometimes a vowel, as in the following words: 1) my; 2) baby; 3) lady, etc. Other letters in the alphabet have more than one sound also.

Y has always been a consonant. The reason that it is sometimes considered a vowel is, ironically, a way for teachers to try to not confuse their students. In the English language, most words contain a vowel, thus when words like ‘why’ and ‘fly’ turn up, it is easier to say that ‘Y’ is sometimes a vowel than to say that their are exceptions to the ‘every word has vowels’ rule.

The only other letter that shares ‘Y’s dual nature is ‘W’, though since ‘W’ is only a ‘vowel’ in roughly two words that are never used, people tend to ignore it.

Y is a consonant, but sometimes it has a vowel sound (long i as in fly, long e as in Mary). I don’t know why it does this. Lots of letters make more than one sound. Y is just one of them, I guess. It can make a consonant and vowel sound. Other letters that make more than one sound are only always consonant sounds or always vowel sounds.

Y is NEVER a consonant – it’s just very poor understanding of the English language that has people believing this.

Vowels and consonants are SOUNDS, not letters.

Vowel sounds are made with no mouth parts making contact – with no obstructions to their airflow e.g. ar, oo, air, ee, a etc

Consonants are made with mouth parts touching in some way – with obstruction to the airflow e.g. b, fff, mmm, sss etc

The letter y represents three sounds – ‘ie’ as in fly, try; ‘ee’ as in happy, puppy and a really brief ‘ee’ as in its initial position in ‘yes’ and ‘yellow’.

This last one is the tricky one – most people associate the sound ‘yuh’ with these words, but this sound doesn’t actually exist. If you say ‘yes’ and elongate the first sound, as you might when pondering the question that you just hesitantly answered ‘yes’ to… you would be saying ‘eeeeeee – es.’

Children exploring phonology for the first time can hear this – adults find it harder. Our ability to discriminate speech sounds diminishes with age and lack of practice.

And, basically, ‘ie’ ‘ee’ and a brief’ ‘ee’ are all vowel sounds, so ‘y’ is a vowel letter.

However, i have always had problems with assigning vowel and consonant labels to letters, as some letters are used to spell both e.g. R spells ‘rr’ as in red (consonant) and ‘or’ as in ‘torch’ (vowel)

Y is a consonant unless it’s at the end of a word.. then it’s a vowel.

I did whatca goin do bout it? LOL