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"Y" letter into the Swedish alphabet

  I read about this letter is defined "SEMI-VOWEL". I'm not sure to well understand what a SEMI VOWEL is. 
I imagine it is a vowel or a consonant : it depends from the letter close to it...anyone can explain better?
Thanks a lot. It is so difficult!!!



A syllable is typically made up of three parts - an onset, a nucleus and a coda, with both the onset and the coda being optional (most common syllables are just onset and nucleus - like 'da' for instance). Most commonly the boundaries (onset and coda) are made up of consonants, with the core being a vowel.

A letter being a semi-vowel just means it can be the boundary in a syllable. An example of this are the words 'yes' and 'yell' in english. However, offhand I can't think of any word in the swedish language where 'Y' is used as a boundary, sorry. I wouldn't worry about it too much though, I'd say it's something that you'll just learn automatically with time and not even think about.

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