How many consonants are there in the English alphabet?

How many consonants are there in the English alphabet?

• A. 20
• B. 19
• C. 22
• D. 21

Answer: (D)

The main idea is counting consonants by separating vowels from the full alphabet. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, and the traditional vowels are five: A, E, I, O, U. If you subtract those from the total, you get 26 minus 5 equals 21, so there are 21 consonants. Y is often debated, but in standard counting it’s treated as a consonant, which keeps the total at 21. If you counted Y as a vowel, you’d have a different total (20), but the usual convention yields 21.

The main idea is counting consonants by separating vowels from the full alphabet. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, and the traditional vowels are five: A, E, I, O, U. If you subtract those from the total, you get 26 minus 5 equals 21, so there are 21 consonants. Y is often debated, but in standard counting it’s treated as a consonant, which keeps the total at 21. If you counted Y as a vowel, you’d have a different total (20), but the usual convention yields 21.