Do you sometimes get stuck trying to work out whether it is 'a apple' or 'an apple'?

Is it 'a university' or 'an university'?

Keep these tips in mind and you won't get stuck again...

Tip 1

As a general rule if a word begins with a vowel a, e, i, o, u then we use 'an'.

If a word begins with any other letter we use 'a'.

Using this rule we have 'an apple', 'an egg' or 'an ice-cream'.

We also have 'a hamburger', 'a banana' or 'a bicycle' for example.

However, as with most grammar rules there are exceptions...

Tip 2

If a word sounds like it starts with a consonant, even though it starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) then we use a.

Using this rule we get 'a university' or 'a European' for example.

University and European both sound like they start with a Y, this is not a vowel and so we use a.

Tip 3

If a word sounds like it starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) but it begins with a consonant then we use 'an'.

Using this rule we get 'an hour' and not 'a hour'.

Hour (to talk about the time) sounds like 'our' when we say the word out loud.

Keep these 3 tips in mind for the next time you're not sure whether to use 'a' or 'an'.

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