Grammar: indefinite articles 'a' and 'an' (lesson & exercise)

Lesson:

In learning about articles, there are two main topics: one of them, when to use 'a' and 'the', is infamously difficult. The other one, however, when to use 'a' and 'an', is very simple. Today, let's look at the simple one.

As a fast review (because it's not the topic of this lesson), we use 'a' or 'an' for nouns that are countable, singular and indefinite.

In other words, we don't say '*I smell a smoke', because 'smoke' is uncountable. We don't say '*I saw a computers' because 'computers' is plural. We don't say, for example, '*There are clouds in a sky' because 'sky' tends to be definite.

The important subject today, though, is whether to use 'a' or 'an'. For some reason, we always see the xample here of 'umbrella'. A student quickly learns to say 'I have an umbrella.' instead of '*I have a umbrella.'

Why? The basic answer is that 'umbrella' begins with the letter 'u', and the letter 'u' is a vowel. Because it's a vowel, we must use 'an' instead of 'a' with it. In the English language, the following are vowels: 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' and sometimes 'y'. Because 'y' at the beginning of a word is almost never a vowel, we can forget about it today.

Okay. So far so easy. The important thing, though, which people often confuse, is that it's not the written spelling which matters but the spoken pronunciation. For example, 'uniform' starts with the same letter as 'umbrella' in writing, but we say it differently. We say 'uniform' like there is a 'y' at the beginning - the beginning of 'uniform' is like 'you'. For this reason, we say 'I have to wear a uniform'. More commonly, a word like 'honest' is written with an 'h', but that 'h' is not pronounced. So we say 'I'm looking for an honest man'. A few more examples, which should be clearer if you say them out loud:

• Poland is a European country.
• The doctor wants me to have an X-ray done.
• It's an honour to meet you.
• Smiling is a universal gesture.

Interestingly, all of this is also true for the definite article too. Although it's always spelt the same, we pronounce it differently. In front of vowels, 'the' sounds like the old English word 'thee'. When we say, for example, 'the English language', we pronounce the first word with a 'long e'. When we say 'the European Union', however, we pronounce 'the' normally.

Exercise:

Fill in the blanks in these sentences with either 'a' or 'an'.

1. I'm looking for _____ orange-coloured sweater.
2. Are you _____ American citizen?
3. They are sending _____ UN inspector.
4. We're having a press conference with _____ ABC reporter, _____ CBS reporter, _____ NBC reporter and _____ FOX reporter.
5. Is there _____ holiday in February?
6. Was the stegosaurus _____ carnivore, _____ herbivore or _____ omnivore?
7. All of the workers in this factory belong to _____ union.
8. The word 'mnemonic' starts with _____ 'm'.
9. It was _____ useful piece of advice.
10. If you have _____ hour or two, you should watch this movie.