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).
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We’d say “a history student” in the UK, and the h isn’t silent.
“British” isn’t an accent. Like yeah some accents might use an, e.g “‘e’s an ‘istory student, innit?”, however many accents would pronounce the “h” and use “a”. You managed to be correct and incorrect at the same time
That’s his exact point though. It depends on the sound when you say it, not the actual letter.