Search results for 'tag:Universities tag:Consonants' matching tags 'Universities' and 'Consonants'

Re: a(n) university ??

yizhivika — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:38:19 GMT

Yes, Yankee's comments above pretty much speak for British English usage, as well as for American English. The initial u in the 'consonant' examples given by Yankee is invariably pronounced as yoo.

As for British usage of 'An historic(al)', you will still occasionally find it, and I think one is supposed to drop the h when pronouncing it, i.e. "An 'istoric(al)", but I suspect it'll die out eventually, and we'll all use "A historic(al)" instead.

Re: a(n) university ??

Yankee — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:50:07 GMT

The use of 'a' or 'an' is based on pronunciation.

If a word begins with a vowel sound, you should use 'an'. For example:

- an apple
- an elephant
- an idea
- an orange
- an umbrella
- an hour
- an SOS

If a word begins with a consonant sound, you should use 'a'. This includes some words that have a vowel at the beginning. For example:

- a ewe
- a university
- a uniform
- a unique person

Re: Usage of articles in English grammar

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:04:29 GMT

The letters W and Y are semi-vowels. Though they are consonants, at times they behave like vowels as their sounds in certain words change into vowel sounds.
The word "European" starts with the vowel "E" but has the consonantal "yea" sound .. Hence "an European" is incorrect. The right answer is "a European".

Some other examples are :   " A University" and not "An University"

                                          "A one day match" and not "An one day match".

In this sentence the vowel O in the word "one" has the consonantal "woa" sound.

Regards
Sasikala
Dawn India Career Solutions
Coimbatore.
Ph : 0422 - 4218765


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Re: No Vowvels but using "AN" with it why ??? ...

Madame_butterfly — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:03:08 GMT

Thank you Grammar Geek for your compliment, I am glad to be here with you sharing and learning. In fact I have also meant what you said. If the pronunciation starts with a consonant sound then it takes "a", as in "university". Besides, as in "hour", the pronunciation starts with a vowel, and it takes "an". I think we agree on the same idea. I hope I could make myself clear enough

Re: Is grammar essential for learning a language?

Feathers — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:11:39 GMT

Thanks, anon. Without your post, I would have missed this thread.

Goodman wrote:

Hi CJ,

What an impressive thread you have posted. You have slowly made me a fan of yours.

Yep!

CalifJim wrote:

In any case, the struggle for the learner is always making the conversion from 'computing' utterances (assembling them by applying grammatical rules) to generating meaningful utterances spontaneously. The more role models the learners have, whether in terms of number of speakers they have contact with or in terms of the number of written and spoken resources they have available, the smoother the transition. At the extreme, if the learner is thrown into a sink-or-swim situation -- immersion -- it may be possible to shortcut the 'computational' period considerably. The final goal is the same in any case: meaningful language that is automatically produced and instinctively felt without any further consciousness of or need for the 'computational' (grammatical) aspects which were so prominent and necessary in the learning stages.

How true.

I'm reminded of Prof. Stern's comment (University of Connecticut), as an additional tip for us learners.
_______________________________________________________________________________

when people are really acclimating themselves with American English, I think one of the first things that makes native English speakers more comfortable with a non-native speaker is not necessarily even the pronunciation of the individual vowels and consonants, but whether the inflections are moving in the direction that the listeners are used to hearing. Whether the rhythm of the language - some languages that are in a totally different rhythm, and if a speaker of that accent simply starts to elongate the syllables and change the pitch some, then a native speaking listener is going to become much more comfortable with that speech pattern.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Re: when to use "a" and "an"

Tanit — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:32:25 GMT

Thenativespeaker wrote:

I was told that I could only use "an" when the first alphabet of the successive word contained a, e, i, o, u

But then why is it that for the word "university", it's "a university" and NOT "an university"?

Can someone pls shed light on this?

The same happens with 'e', for instance, in 'European' (a European institution, a European country) because it's a consonant sound.

However, I saw plenty of examples on Google, for 'a European,' even in British websites (86,000!!!)

Am I missing something?

Re: when to use "a" and "an"

nona the brit — Tue, 08 May 2007 08:47:09 GMT

You need to to consider whether it is a vowel or consonant sound that follows, not whether it is an actual vowel or consonant.

University starts with the sound 'yoo' - a consonant sound. Therefore it takes 'a'. A university. A unique one. A universal part. An unusual one. An understudy. An upper-cut.

Re: Canadians and their English

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:54:21 GMT

General Canadian English is extremely similar to General American English. However, there are a number of differences between the two dialects. Firstly, GCE (General Canadian English) exhibits a linguistic phenomenon called Canadian Raising. Basically, the diphthong âaiâ--as in "by" or "lie"--is raised before voiceless consonants (t, k, p, s, f); by contrast, this diphthong is not raised before other consonants (v, z, d, b, l, m, n, r, etc). Thus, by using Canadian Raising, the words in the following word pairs can be pronounced differently: ride and write, five and fife, and rise and rice.
The diphthong "au," as in "loud," is commonly raised before the consonants "t," "th," "ch," and "s." This diphthong is not raised before the consonants "d," "z," "n," and "j." As was pointed out, the word "about" sounds like "a boat"... well, to American ears, that is. In General American English, the diphthong "ai" is not raised before any consonant, nor is the diphthong "au." Yet, this raising has been occurring in various areas of the U.S., and it has spread quite far.

Another difference between these dialects is that, in GCE, the vowel "o" is always pronounced as "o" before the consonant "r." Therefore, âsorryâ is pronounced sor-ee, âborrowâ is pronounced bor-row, and âsorrow,â sor-row. In General American English, the vowel "o" is sometimes pronounced as the vowel "a"--as in "father"--before the consonant "r." In GAE (General American English), "sorry" is pronounced sar-ee, "borrow" is pronounced bar-row, and âsor-rowâ is pronounced sar-row. This, nevertheless, isn't very common in GAE; in fact, I canât think of any other word that is pronounced with the vowel âa,â other than sorrow, borrow, and sorry.

Many Canadians pronounce the word "marry" as "merry." In GAE, âmarryâ is pronounced with the vowel âae.â

In GCE, "pasta," "mazda," "lava," "drama," âYahooÂ®,â "taco," and other similar words are pronounced with the vowel "ae." In GAE, these words are pronounced with the vowel "a.â In GCE, on the other hand, these and few other foreign words are pronounced with the vowel "a": macho, Guatemala, Bach, and karate. Why is this so? I sure as heck don't know; it's an anomaly.

Of course, let's not forget Canadian lexicon. In Canada, "pop" is universally used as a term for a carbonated beverage. Even in the U.S., "pop" is used quite widely. It's largely used in the Midwest, Upper Midwest, and Northwest. As well, many Canadians refer to candy bars as "chocolate bars."
In GCE, the idioms "in hospital" and "to university" are used, in lieu of the American idioms "in the hospital" and "to the university," which includes a definite article. So, one may say, "I'm going to have my surgery in hospital," or "I'm going to attend university during the fall."

The last letter of the Canadian alphabet, "zed," is different from the last letter of the American alphabet, "zee."

Well, this is pretty much all I know about GCE.

Re: "an year" VS "a year"

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:25:48 GMT

A / AN

Use 'a' with nouns starting with a consonant (letters that are not vowels),
'an' with nouns starting with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u)

Examples:

A boy
An apple
A car
An orange
A house
An opera

NOTE:
An before an h mute - an hour, an honour.
A before u and eu when they sound like 'you': a european, a university, a unit

Re: Ross' or Ross's? And some other woes.

Ouc — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:32:47 GMT

William Strunk, Jr. (1869â1946). The Elements of Style. 1918.

II. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE

Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's.

Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,

Charles's friend

Burns's poems

the witch's malice

This is the usage of the United States Government Printing Office and of the Oxford University Press.

Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in -es and -is, the possessive Jesus', and such forms as for conscience' sake, for righteousness' sake. But such forms as Achilles' heel, Moses' laws, Isis' temple are commonly replaced by

the heel of Achilles

the laws of Moses

the temple of Isis

The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and oneself have no apostrophe.