What counts as a consonant
Every letter that is not A, E, I, O or U — so B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X and Z, twenty-one letters in all, with Y making a twenty-second depending on the word. Digits, spaces and punctuation are neither vowels nor consonants, which is why the two counts added together come to less than your character count.
The letter Y, again
Y is the only genuinely contested letter. Here it is treated as a consonant when a vowel follows it — yes, beyond, canyon, yellow — and as a vowel otherwise, as in rhythm, happy or my. You can replace that with a fixed rule in the panel above if you need to match a particular textbook or game.
The vowel-to-consonant ratio
English prose runs at roughly 38 to 40 percent vowels, so about three consonants for every two vowels. The ratio bar under the counts shows your text against that expectation, and it moves in predictable ways: acronym-heavy technical writing drifts consonant-ward, while text full of short function words drifts the other way. It is also the fastest way to spot text that is not English at all — Hawaiian and Japanese romanisation sit far higher in vowels, Czech and Polish far lower.
Consonant clusters
English tolerates long runs of consonants that many languages do not. Strengths is often cited as the longest one-syllable English word, with eight consonant letters wrapped around a single vowel. Rhythms manages seven letters with no conventional vowel at all — which, depending on the Y rule you choose here, will count as either seven consonants and no vowels, or six consonants and one vowel. It is a good demonstration of why the setting exists.
Where consonant counts get used
- Word games and puzzles — Scrabble racks, Wordle strategy, crossword construction and cipher work all turn on letter distribution.
- Teaching phonics — showing children which letters in a word are consonants, with the letters marked in place rather than listed separately.
- Constrained writing — lipograms, univocalics and similar exercises, where the A–Z comb tells you instantly whether a forbidden letter slipped through.
How each count is defined
Most counters give you a number and never tell you what they measured, which is why three tools can disagree about the same paragraph. Here are our rules, in full.
- Characters
- Grapheme clusters — what a human would point at and call one character. An emoji like 👨👩👧 counts as 1, not 5. Accented letters count as 1 whether they were typed as a single character or as a letter plus a combining accent.
- Words
- A run of letters or digits, held together by apostrophes, hyphens and internal
periods.
don't,state-of-the-art,3.14andU.S.A.are each one word. Links and email addresses count as one word each. - Sentences
- Text ending in
.!?or…, followed by a space or the end of the text. Titles like Dr. and Mt. never end a sentence, initials like J. R. R. are held together, and decimals such as 3.14 are left alone. A line break also ends a sentence, so headings and bullet points are counted properly. - Vowels
- A, E, I, O, U, plus their accented forms — café has two vowels, naïve has three. Y is handled by whichever rule you pick above.
- Consonants
- Every other letter. Digits, spaces and punctuation are neither vowels nor consonants, which is why vowels plus consonants is smaller than your character count.
One thing worth being clear about: this counts letters, not sounds. Queue has four vowel letters and one vowel sound. If you need phonetic syllables rather than written vowels, the syllable estimate in the panel above is closer to what you want.
Common questions
How do I count the consonants in a word?
Type or paste the word into the box on this page. The consonant count updates instantly, and the A–Z chart below shows how many times each individual letter appears.
How many consonants are in the English alphabet?
Twenty-one — every letter except A, E, I, O and U. Y makes a twenty-second in words where it acts as a consonant, such as yes or yellow.
Is Y a consonant?
Sometimes. Y is a consonant in yes, beyond and canyon, and a vowel in rhythm, happy and my. This counter decides per word by default and lets you switch to a fixed rule if you prefer.
Why do vowels plus consonants not equal my character count?
Because digits, spaces, punctuation and emoji are none of the above. Only letters are classified as vowels or consonants.
What is the normal vowel to consonant ratio in English?
Roughly 38 to 40 percent vowels, or about three consonants for every two vowels. Technical writing with many acronyms sits lower; text with many short function words sits higher.
What English word has the most consonants in a row?
Words like strengths and twelfths pack long consonant runs around a single vowel. Rhythms has no conventional vowel letter at all, which is exactly the case where the Y setting on this page changes the answer.