NRTC English: Do you say a hero or an hero?

Generally, as a rule, the indefinite article ‘a’ is used before words that begin with a consonant sound; and its counterpart ‘an’ is used before words that begin with a vowel sound.

I am writing about words that begin with either consonant sounds or vowel sounds, not the letters of the English alphabet. Let us look at some examples:

• an a university /juːnɪˈvəːsɪti/: /j/ is a consonant sound hence the use of the article ‘a’
• a an umbrella, an apple, an orange, an apostle, an onion, etc
• a ruler, a game, a computer, a union, a DVD player, etc
• an SMS /es.em.es/, an MP3 /empiːˈθriː/, an INEC official etc. Here, you must pay attention to the sound that begins the word or says the acronym.

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In English pronunciation, there are words with a silent ‘h’; and words where the letter ‘h’ is not pronounced.

And as you have learned in the previous examples, the sound that begins a word or any word is our consideration here. This sound determines whether the indefinite article ‘a’ or ‘an’ will come before the word.

For example, we say an hour /ˈaʊə/ because the ‘h’ in ‘hour’ is silent. Therefore, words beginning with the silent ‘h’ have an indefinite article ‘an’ that precedes them. In the same vein, words with the ‘h’ pronouncement will have an indefinite article ‘a’ preceding them.

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Other examples are:

• an honest man not a honest man
• an heir not a heir
• a hotel not an hotel
• a hero not an hero
• a house not an house
• It’s an honour a honour
• a history an history professor
• a habit an habit

You must commit these words beginning with silent ‘h’ to memory, and use them correctly when you speak with people.