English: "a user" or "an user"?
Question by Guest | Last update on 2021-04-07 | Created on 2017-12-31
At school, I have learned to say "an" when the word starts with a vowel and "a" when the word starts with a consonant.
Now, I have seen that someone has written "a user" on an official page. However, since "user" begins with a vowel, in my opinion, it should be "an user", right? On the other hand, I can not imagine that the website on which I saw it makes such an obvious mistake.
I have been wondering all the time, maybe someone can enlighten me in this point.
Related Topics
"G" or "E" sign on my mobile
Question | 1 Answer
ImageResizer: Spelling Correction
Tip | 1 Comment
Linux: Difference between "chmod +x" and "chmod u+x"
Question | 1 Answer
HTML5 Validator: Bad value "" for attribute "action" on element "form": Must be non-empty
Question | 2 Answers
CSS: "align:center" and "align:right" not working
Question | 1 Answer
What does bra size "D-DD" mean?
Question | 1 Answer
Important Note
Please note: The contributions published on askingbox.com are contributions of users and should not substitute professional advice. They are not verified by independents and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of askingbox.com. Learn more.
Participate
Ask your own question or write your own article on askingbox.com. That’s how it’s done.
Indeed, "a user" is correct.
The reason: It's not about whether a word is written with a vowel at the beginning, it matters whether a word is pronounced with a vowel at the beginning.
Since we pronounce "user" as "youser" [you-ser], there is no vowel "u" but the consonant "j" in the first place so that we have to say "a".
There is also the counterexample: For example, we say "an hour", since we do not pronounce the "h" and instead say "auer". So the word starts with a pronounced vowel and we use "an".
Last update on 2021-04-07 | Created on 2017-12-31