flesch syllable counter

im working on this one program that takes in a word/sentence and it returns the number of syllables that are in the word or sentence
the problem is though that it isnt returning the correct number of syllables
everytime i input something all i get is 0 syllables
i am an absolute noob and havent learned debugging yet so someone please help me

this method here will find out where all the words are by detecting spaces:

Code:

---

      public int wordBreaker ()
      {
        String brokenFromSentence = "";
        int syllables = 0;
        char characterAtCurrentIndex = '\u0000';
     
        for (int indexNumber = 0; indexNumber <= word.length() - 1;indexNumber++)
        {
            characterAtCurrentIndex = word.charAt(indexNumber);
       
            if (characterAtCurrentIndex != ' ' || characterAtCurrentIndex != word.charAt(word.length() - 1))
            {
              brokenFromSentence = brokenFromSentence.concat(new StringBuilder (characterAtCurrentIndex).toString());
            }
           
            else
            {
              syllables += countSyllables(brokenFromSentence);
              brokenFromSentence = "";
            }
        }
       
        return syllables;       
      }

---

this method here is where a word is sent and syllables are found out:

Code:

---

      public int countSyllables (String partOfAString)
      {
        char characterAtCurrentIndex = '\u0000';
        char characterAtPreviousIndex = '\u0000';
        int syllables = 0;
       
        for (int indexNumber = 0; indexNumber < partOfAString.length()-1; indexNumber++)
        {
            characterAtCurrentIndex = partOfAString.charAt(indexNumber);
       
            if (isVowel(characterAtCurrentIndex))
            {
              characterAtPreviousIndex = characterAtCurrentIndex;
            }
           
            if (isVowel(characterAtPreviousIndex) == true &&
                isVowel(characterAtCurrentIndex) == false)
            {
              syllables++;
              characterAtPreviousIndex = '\u0000';
            }
        }
     
        vowelsExceptE = "AIOUYaiouy";
             
        if (vowelsExceptE.indexOf(partOfAString.charAt(partOfAString.length()-1)) != -1)
        {
            syllables++;
        }

        if (syllables == 0)
        {
            syllables = 1;
        }

        return syllables;
      }

---

this method here detects all the vowels:

Code:

---

      public static boolean isVowel (char ch)
      {
        vowels = "AEIOUYaeiouy";
       
        if (vowels.indexOf(ch) != -1 )
        {
            return true;
        }
        return false;
      }

---

this is the test driver we are supposed to use:

Code:

---

  import java.util.Scanner;
  import java.io.*;

  public class WordTester
  {
      public static void main(String [] args)throws IOException
      {
        Scanner reader = new Scanner(System.in);
             
        System.out.print("Enter word/s: ");
        String input = reader.nextLine();
             
        Word w = new Word(input);
             
        System.out.println("Word = " + input);
        System.out.println("Syllables = " + w.wordBreaker());
      }
  }

---

Quote:

---

i am an absolute noob and havent learned debugging yet so someone please help me

---

So, now is a great time to learn. Your simplest form of debugging involves putting a bunch of System.out.println statements in your code to see how far execution progresses as well as the current state of any variables.

I suggest you put some numbered printouts in your code so you can see where and when things happen, and then also print the state of your inputs and intermediate variables throughout your code. From that you should be able to deduce your logic errors!