Part of speech
or grammatical category: | Word, term
or idea: | Other notes on
class or type: | Level of difficulty
1 elementary
5 intermediate
9 advanced |
| Adjective
| a or an
| while a and an are adjectives,
they are also classified as articles,
and specifically as indefinite articles
| 2 |
| Explanation and discussion: |
| Before a noun we have to decide if we should use an article or not, or some other word. Once we know we need an article, the question is do we need the or a or an. Even then, we must further decide between a or an. Fortunately this is the easiest part of the decision. In almost every case you will see, the decision between a or an will be based on euphonics, that is to say, what 'sounds good' to a native ear. The general rule of thumb is a goes before consonant sounds while an goes before vowel sounds. But, please note the important word here is sounds. See below for some examples.
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| Example(s): |
a- a balloon
- a computer
- a house
- a light bulb
- a uniform
- a yacht
|
an- an egg
- an hour
- an ice cream cone
- an LED (light emitting diode)
- an onion
- an unlisted phone number
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| Note(s):
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| In some regional Englishes an old-fashioned rule is followed in which all unaccented h's are preceded by an and all u's are preceded by an. However, for all modern international Englishes this is not the case.
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| Exercise(s): |
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Select the proper article. |
1) abacus
2) university
3) GE(r) refrigerator
4) hotel
5) easter egg
6) happy man
7) half hour
8) unlucky person
9) MBA
10) Jew
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