Vowel & Consonant Counter

Count the number of vowels and consonants in text.

Input

Output

Examples

Example 1

Hello World

Example 2

Education is important

Understanding Vowels and Consonants

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) are speech sounds produced without obstruction in the vocal tract. They form the core of syllables and enable pronunciation. Consonants require partial or complete vocal tract closure, creating distinct sounds by blocking airflow.

English has 5 vowel letters but many more vowel sounds (diphthongs, long/short variants). 'Y' sometimes acts as vowel ('gym', 'happy') but is typically counted as consonant. Vowel/consonant ratios vary by language—Hawaiian has 37% vowels while Czech has only 33%.

Vowel-to-consonant ratio affects readability and pronunciation difficulty. Higher vowel ratios (40-45%) create smoother, easier-to-read text. Dense consonant clusters ('strengths' has 7 consecutive consonants) challenge speakers and slow reading.

Practical Applications of Vowel/Consonant Counting

Readability analysis uses vowel density as complexity indicator. Text with balanced vowel/consonant ratios (around 40/60) reads more naturally. Extreme ratios signal potential issues—excessive consonants create tongue-twisters, too many vowels feel choppy.

Poetry and lyric writing relies on vowel/consonant patterns for rhythm and sound. Assonance (vowel repetition) and alliteration (consonant repetition) create memorable phrases. Counting helps poets maintain balanced sound patterns.

Language learning exercises use vowel/consonant counting to understand phonetic structure. Comparing ratios between native and target languages helps learners adapt to different sound patterns and pronunciation requirements.

Vowel/Consonant Counting Challenges

Y classification ambiguity creates inconsistent counts. In 'yellow' it acts as consonant, in 'gym' as vowel. Most counters treat Y as consonant universally for simplicity, but linguistic accuracy requires context-aware classification.

Digraphs and diphthongs complicate counting: 'TH' is two consonant letters representing one sound. 'OI' in 'oil' is two vowel letters forming one diphthong. Letter counts differ from sound counts—specify whether counting graphemes or phonemes.

Non-English characters (accented vowels, umlauts) need special handling. Is 'é' a vowel? Most tools ignore diacritics and count only a-z, but international text requires broader vowel definitions including á, é, í, ó, ú, etc.

Best Practices for Vowel/Consonant Analysis

Normalize case before counting: 'A' and 'a' are the same vowel. Convert all text to lowercase to avoid treating the same letter as different based on capitalization.

Filter non-alphabetic characters: Numbers, punctuation, and spaces are not vowels or consonants. Strip them before counting to get accurate letter-only statistics and meaningful vowel/consonant ratios.

Display both raw counts and percentages: '20 vowels' is less informative than '20 vowels (42%)'. Percentages enable comparison across texts of different lengths and help identify unusually high or low vowel densities.

Consider syllable counting for deeper analysis: Syllables are vowel-centered, so syllable count correlates with vowel count. Complex readability metrics (Flesch-Kincaid) use syllables, making vowel analysis a first step toward comprehensive text scoring.

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