Both, “a” and “an” are articles which mean “one” or “a single”. Therefore, they cannot be used with plural nouns.
- We saw
a rabbitsin Kensington Park Not Correct
Some people think that we use “A” with singular countable nouns when they begin with a consonant and “AN” when the singular countable noun begins with a vowel. If this was so, we could not say:
- “If you attend that school, you’ll have to wear a uniform“.
- “We wish we could have a unicorn“.
- “In order to win, you need a one“.
- “We’ll go on holiday to a European country“.
However, this is correct. Why? Because it is not a matter of graphemes, it has to do with sounds. We use “A” before singular countable nouns that begin with a consonant sound, and “AN” when they begin with a vowel sound.
Therefore, those words starting with the historically “long u”/j/ with graphemes<eu> or <u>, or the sound/w/with the grapheme <o> , such as in the above example “one”,will always be preceded by “AN”.
Of course, the same applies to those words beginning with “H”. We use “AN” before words such as “hour”, which begins with a vowel sound “/aʊə/”. However, in the case of the word “hospital”, we will use “A”, because we pronounce the sound “H” /ˈhɒspɪtəl/.
- “They live in a house“.
- “It is difficult to find an honest politician these days”.
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