Check whether a character is a vowel or consonant in Python

Understanding Vowels and Consonants

A vowel is a letter (a, e, i, o, u) that represents an open speech sound. A consonant is any other letter in the alphabet.

We will explore three different methods to check whether a character is a vowel or consonant in Python.

Method 1: Using if-else

This method checks if the character belongs to the set of vowels.

def check_vowel_or_consonant(ch):
    if ch.lower() in 'aeiou':
        print(f"{ch} is a vowel")
    else:
        print(f"{ch} is a consonant")

ch = input("Enter a character: ")
check_vowel_or_consonant(ch)

Input: a
Output: a is a vowel

Method 2: Using Match Case

This method uses a match case (Python 3.10+) to determine if the character is a vowel.

def check_vowel_or_consonant(ch):
    match ch.lower():
        case 'a' | 'e' | 'i' | 'o' | 'u':
            print(f"{ch} is a vowel")
        case _:
            print(f"{ch} is a consonant")

ch = input("Enter a character: ")
check_vowel_or_consonant(ch)

Input: b
Output: b is a consonant

Method 3: Using Recursion

This method checks vowels recursively.

def is_vowel(ch):
    return ch.lower() in 'aeiou'

def check_vowel_or_consonant(ch):
    if is_vowel(ch):
        print(f"{ch} is a vowel")
    else:
        print(f"{ch} is a consonant")

ch = input("Enter a character: ")
check_vowel_or_consonant(ch)

Input: o
Output: o is a vowel