Hi, I am having a debate with co-workers regarding which indefinite article to use preceding Hispanic. We agree the article a precedes words beginning with a consonant, the article an precedes words beginning with vowels. We also know an

I quite understand why rhotic people would find the usual ... in the language where the combination "uh" represents this sound? Good point, "uh" doesn't really appear in traditional English words, does it? Searching on in

Default User wibbled It doesn't start with a vowel sound, and that's what drives the choice of article. Unless you think Euro is pronounce ee-oo-ro or something. It doesn't have a capital E. It's just 'euro'. (Nor does it

The maximum onsets principle isn't universally accepted. See http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/syllabif.htm which ... /n/ goes in the third syllable because of stress.) Jonathan Who is Wells? Professor of phonetics at University College

Hi Yo, A vowel sound is determined, as suzi rightly pointed out, not by its look, but by its sound. Two of the most confusing semi/half consonents in Engish are those such as /ju:/ in "Europe and /w/ in "one". The looks of these are very

: So how does the rule on "u" and "a" or "an" work (or all the vowels for that matter)? Why is it a university, but an umbilical cord? Because of the pronunciation, not the spelling. University is pronounced

That may be true of "most of us in the ... vowel). This is a phonemic difference too (because of "can"). OK, you seem to presuppose that "can" is pronounced differently when it means "tin can" from the way it is

Phonetically, of course, the only place most of us in the US have a length contrast is in pairs like "cap" and "cab", where the only phonetic difference is that the vowel in the second is longer. That may be true of "most

I know that I can't tell the difference (by ear, ... dialect of English differentiates between /i/ and /I/ before /N/. You gotta be kidding. "Tin" and "teen" are pronounced quite differently from each other, and the

In article , Robert Bannister (Email Removed) writes I have a Macedonian friend who often says "Dobro popladne" ... (that I know) and is becoming fairly old-fashioned in English. Not in UK English. Saying "Good morning" after