Why you should know: The ‘a’ vs ‘an’ conundrum is not about what letter actually begins the word, but instead about how the sound of the word starts.

For example, the ‘h’ in ‘hour’ is silent, so you would say ‘an hour’ and not ‘a hour’. A trickier example is Ukraine: because the ‘U’ is pronounced as ‘You’, and in this case the ‘y’ is a consonant, you would say “a Ukraine” and not “an Ukraine”.

Tip: when in doubt, sound it out(loud).

Reference

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

    • @robolemmy
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      3011 hours ago

      Truly an historic effort by OP

    • @[email protected]
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      210 hours ago

      It is very basic stuff tho, anyone who learned enough english to read this post would’ve already been taught this. Except for native speakers maybe?

      • @reattach
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        23 hours ago

        Carefully read the comment you’re replying to

        • @tamal3
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          22 hours ago

          I missed it. Appreciate you.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness
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        210 hours ago

        Except for native speakers maybe?

        Exactly. This is a less egregious example of the they’re/their dilemma.