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).
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
It smooths out the pronunciation when reading out loud.
Here’s some examples.
A farmer fed a animal and got a egg.
A farmer fed an animal and got an egg.
The woman put on a orange hat.
The woman put on an orange hat.
The duck quacked at a cat
The duck quacked at an cat.
The “a orange” could work if you produced a “uh” instead of “eh”. But I think an is the smoothest. “an cat” is just a fun incorrect use of an.
More simply:
Farmer fed animal and got egg. Woman put on orange hat. Duck quacked at cat.
A has an important role in language, its more than just filler. I am not an English expert, but I can look up some grammar to refresh myself a bit.
Which animal, how many eggs, what cat, what hat?
“The” has the opposite role.
There is a cat at the pond. The duck quacked at the cat.
In the first sentence, I introduced the existence of a cat. In the second sentence I referred specifically to the cat.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indefinite article
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/a#dictionary-entry-2
what the fuck’s a nanimal
The female grandparent of an animal.
Typo, they obviously meant to put manimal
Fun show!