In "yes," Y is representing a consonant, and in "gym" it is representing a vowel. A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y is not a bad rule of thumb. Most of the time a spoken vowel will be represented by ...

They are consonant+vowel combinations 'wuh' and 'yu.' A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y is not a bad rule of thumb. Most of the time a spoken vowel will be represented by one of those written forms.

It does this by putting all vowels next to each other on the left, and placing consonants in order of the frequency they occur in English language, spread across both left and right.

What letters are vowels? This Bitesize KS1 English guide looks at how anything that isn't a vowel is a consonant through an animation and activity.

Patented by August Dvorak in 1936, the layout reduces finger motion by placing all vowels in the middle row on the left side of the keyboard and commonly-used consonants like R, S, T, N, and L on ...