About w and y and the vowels ............?

Question

Back in 3rd or 4th grade, our teachers & grammar books used to tell us that the vowels were a, e, i, o, and u, "and sometimes w and y." I never understood that. It looks to me like w and y should always be regarded as vowels, since (as far as I know) they are always pronounced as "oo" or "ih" or some other open-throated sound, like all vowels ... Can somebody explain this to me? If w and y are vowels only "sometimes," then when would they be vowels and when not?

Hi Melanie, .. Thanks for your reply but I'm sorry, I can't go along with you.

For one thing, it sounds to me like the "y" sound in "yes" is simply the sound of the long e vowel sound ("ee"), so that "yes" is pronounced "ee-ess," with the two sounds slid together, like a glissando in music.

One might say the "y" in "yes" has a "yuh" sound, but I would say it still only has the "ee" sound, so that the "yuh" breaks down to "ee-uh."

However, from an internet search using the search term, "english vowels w y" (without the quotation marks), it appears the expression I asked about ("and sometimes w and y") mainly refers to cases where the w and y appear in words with Welsh or Spanish origins.

Answer 1

I have never heard that W is sometimes a vowel; just Y.

Look at the word "yes." This has a distinct sound and is not like a vowel. It is when the Y is pronounced like an I that it is considered a vowel.