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

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  • @[email protected]English
    10•2 days ago

    Don’t forget that ‘h’ is an exception and counts as a vowel: “a hat”

    edit literally i am wrong about this why did i write that

      • @[email protected]English
        5•2 days ago

        don’t even need an hour. “herb” has multiple regional pronunciations and so can receive both treatments depending on the context.

        also my original comment was just wrong i don’t even know how i got to the point of writing that. “an hour” is the standard treatment of words starting with vowel sounds—the letters themselves don’t matter.

        but “h” is treated as a consonant. which it is. duh. i feel so dumb lol.

        • @wolfpack86
          2•12 hours ago

          There are several people who will say “an historic” while fully pronouncing the H and acting all smug and proper about it.