Use Of The A And An Questions Medium
When deciding whether to use "a" or "an" before words starting with silent letters, the general rule is to consider the sound that follows the article. If the following sound is a vowel sound, regardless of whether the letter is silent or not, you should use "an." On the other hand, if the following sound is a consonant sound, you should use "a." This means that even if a word starts with a silent letter, if the following sound is a consonant sound, you would use "a." For example, you would say "a university" because the "u" in "university" is pronounced as a consonant sound (/juː/), while you would say "an hour" because the "h" in "hour" is silent, and the following sound is a vowel sound (/aʊ/).