YSK: Use ‘a’ when the word starts with a consonant sound, and ‘an’ when it starts with a vowel sound
YSK: Use ‘a’ when the word starts with a consonant sound, and ‘an’ when it starts with a vowel sound
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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Why would you use Ukraine as the example word instead of uniform?
I'm pretty sure I've heard "the Ukraine" been pronounced both ways often enough.
US ambassador William Taylor said that using "the Ukraine" implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty.[25] The official Ukrainian position is that "the Ukraine" is both grammatically and politically incorrect.