How to use consonants and vowels

English Grammar

Some Basic Notes

◼ words called determiners or articles are used to signal nouns.

Example:
⚫ a chair
⚫ a computer
⚫ a train
⚫ a player
⚫ a teacher
⚫ a taxi, etc.

◼ The article an is used before nouns that begin with the vowels, a, e, I, o, and u.

Example:
⚫ an apple
⚫ an umbrella
⚫ an eye
⚫ an insect
⚫ an oven
⚫ an artist

◼ The article a is used before nouns that begin with the other letters, called consonants.

Note: Some words don't follow these rules.

Example of vowels which do not obey the rules:
⚫ a uniform
⚫ a unit
⚫ a user.

Reason why the words are are used with article "a" instead of "an".
The reason is because the u in these vowels is pronounced like y, and y is a consonant.

Example of consonants which do not obey the rules.

⚫ hour
⚫ heir
⚫ honor

an hour, an heir, an honor, these words begin with consonants, but they are used with article an, this is because the h consonants in them is not pronounced.