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.
This is the general rule, but you’ll run into problems with words that are pronounced differently with different dialects.
Example:
A herb / An herb
I’d say ‘an herb’ because where I’m from, the h is silent.
But there are many places where it isn’t silent.
A bunch of other comments are using ‘history’ of an example of this… but I’ve not heard of a dialect where the h in history is silent.
Th’nk ofa som uk accents, lack’n the aytch, comin’ out 'istory & tha like
Well, that does count as a dialect, but I literally would not be able to comprehend it in person.
I have the PNW dialect, aka, the accent that is trained into every newcaster and hollywood actor, because basically every English speaker can understand it without difficulty.
The type O blood of English dialects, if you would.
That’s not a problem at all. Your example proves the rule: it’s about how the first letter sounds, not what the first letter is.
Agreed, it does prove the rule.
…but that doesn’t change what I said.
If you’re interacting soley through text, you may get into a/an arguments with people who don’t know that different dialects pronounce the same words differently.
I didn’t say ‘this disproves the rule.’
Dr Geoff Lindsey has a lot to say about this.
Except all the time from this doesn’t apply, cuz English is fucking nuts.
English is definitely nuts, but can you give an example of where this particular rule doesn’t apply?
Did you not read any of the other comments of the thread? Like a dozen people already gave a great examples.
All of the examples relate to differences in pronunciation, so the guidance in the OP is good - use your personal pronunciation. I would imagine this would be harder for non-native speakers, but fortunately there aren’t many words (that I’m aware of) that are commonly pronounced with a leading vowel sound or leading consonant sound depending of dialect.
The only example cited in this thread that most people will experience is “herb” which has large populations that pronounce it with and without a silent “h.” “History” and related words are not commonly pronounced with a silent h outside of regional dialects.
Some modern English words have changed because the leading “n” from the noun migrated over to the article which precedes it, or from the article to the noun.
“Apron” was originally napron, “a napron”. “Nickname” was originally ekename (with the first part coming from the same root as “eke”, as in “eke out a living”). “An ekename” became “a nekename” and then “a nickname”.
I just learned the bit about an ekename from A Way With Words! Great radio program/podcast.
I’ll chain on: This is why the english language calls the citrus fruit “Orange,” in a round-about way.
The Persians named them Narangs when they acquired them from Asia, which the Spanish turned into “naranja.” But when they crossed the channel “a naranja” became “an aranja” which eventually became “an orange.”
just wait 'til you see what they did with “el lagarto”
This is an great post
Truly an historic effort by OP
I hope you get loose vowels.
(/j)
An Herculean effort, even.
I so want to downvote, but will refrain. However the gross feeling remains.
I tip my hat to you.
it’s been an honor serving with you
it’s been
ana honor serving with youFTFY
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?
Carefully read the comment you’re replying to
I missed it. Appreciate you.
Cheers
Except for native speakers maybe?
Exactly. This is a less egregious example of the they’re/their dilemma.
The vowel sound rule (or a related one) is also used for which vowel sound goes at the end of the definite article “the”, that is, the sound the ‘e’ makes.
Usually the last vowel sound of “the” is a schwa, arguably the most common vowel sound in English, but before another vowel sound, it becomes “ee”, or what other European languages might write “i”.
There might even be an intrusive y (or j as used in Norse and Germanic languages) depending on the speaker. i.e. “The apple” may well be pronounced “thi(y)apple”, and a fellow native speaker wouldn’t notice. “The ball” has the usual schwa. As does “the usual schwa” for that matter.
I barely understood this but I’ve also tried to explain this very thing. I believe it was actually on a post about the pronunciation of ‘Data’ because I felt there were differences to each but could not explain why for the life of me.
This is also true for initialisms, which are acronyms in which each letter is pronounced individually.
“A NASA project” would not become “an NASA project” because nobody pronounces each individual letter of NASA, they just say it as one word.
“An FBI agent” would always be correct, and “a FBI agent” would always be incorrect, because FBI is never pronounced as a word, and each letter is pronounced individually.
NASA vs NSA makes this more apparent too. For example:
A NASA investigationvs
An NSA investigationWait, you mean people don’t call the FBI the fuhbby!?
They will now!
You make a valid point. One initialism/acronym I can think of that can go both ways is SQL (Standard Query Language). You can either pronounce it as Sequel (thus “a sequel query”), or as individual letters (“an S.Q.L. query”).
Trolling is a art
I can’t believe you would make such a simple and obvious mistake. The correct way to say it is “Trolling are a art”, ffs.
No, no, it’s, “Trolling doth be…”
Also interesting, in Ukrainian, the U is pronounced “oo”, so if we said it the way they did, it would be “an Ukraine”.
Don’t even get me started on the fucked-up anglicized versions of Slavic words. Fucking Kruschev and Gorbachev…
Uhhh I actually might need an example? Just one, though?
The Cyrillic character ё is pronounced as “yo”, but when preceded by some consonants, it becomes an “o”. It is consistently mistranslated and mispronounced by anglophones. The correct pronunciation of “Gorbachev” (Горбачёв) is “Gorbachov” and it should be written as such. The other, Хрущёв, is even worse.
deleted by creator
You can’t use any article in front of Ukraine. Not even “the”. Just like it’s “India”, not a/an/the India. It is Britain, but it is also The United Kingdom. For India, you can use The Republic of India.
A good example for your case can be union. It is a union, not an union, because union starts with the sound yu.
a Ukraine war would be greatly destabilizing for a European peace
Should’ve been “A Ukrainian” probably.
This. Until the above comment, it didn’t occur to me I used the wrong noun.
You just wanted to use an unique example. It’s a honest mistake.
University would have been a better example.
yeah this was kinda confusing when I was a kid because I was told that it was 100% about what letter starts a word. like an S for example. an… S…
didn’t help that my mom would argue that it would be “a S” instead of an, even though an always felt more correct .
It gets even more (or maybe less?) confusing when you realize that the word for the letter S is ess.
Kids are frequently taught that letters are vowels (or consonants) when it’s actually the sounds they represent, and there’s not a 1:1 mapping between letters and sounds.
I’m curious on what others’ thoughts are on this: do you say/write “a history” or “an history”? I personally use “a history”, but i’ve seen significant usage of “an history”. Do people not pronounce the ‘h’ in “history”?
We pronounce it with a hard H sound here in Canada, so it would be “a history”
However we pronounce “herb” with a silent H sound, so it’s “an herb”.
There was a historic aluminium discovery at the laboratory.
Cockney i’nn’it guv’na.
A history - but “historical” can be either. A historical fact or an historical fact, both work for me.
Definitely “a history” for me but someone who drops the h for accent reasons, eg a cockney accent, would likely say “an 'istory”.
How they would write it, I’m not sure.
When I’ve heard people say it with “an”, they’ve always pronounced the h, which definitely sounds weird to me.
That sounds weird because it is weird.
I think that sort of thing is from people who have read it without hearing it, or are blindly copying others without thinking about it.
I think the difficulty people have is when writing English down. In speech they will generally get this stuff right automatically, but when it’s on paper “a
historyhonour” can easily look right even though it’s not.EDIT - I am dumb.
How is “a history” not correct? The h is not silent.
You’re right, I’ve made an utter arse of that, ha ha! I meant to type “honour”.
How about the the?
Why not then end? Instead of the /dee/ end?A elephant?
Sound it out. The first sound is a vowel sound so “an elephant”.
But it’s L.
Please tell me you are joking.
Ha ha yes But no. That’s not how an E sounds.
How would you pronounce:
Al, as in Allen?
La, as in Law?
El, as in Elope?
Le, as in Level?
Ill, as in… Ill?
Li, as in Lick?
Ol, as in Oligarchy?
Lo, as in Logistics?
Ul, as in Ultimate?
Lu, as in Luminate?
Just because the letter ‘L’ is generally pronounced ‘el’ on its own does not mean the ‘e’ sound is not a vowel.
Its ‘an elephant’ because ‘e’ is a vowel, and that’s the first pronounced sound.
Its ‘a lever’, because ‘l’ is a consonant, and that’s the first pronounced sound.
… Is English not your first language, or have you not graduated middle school yet?
