8 Comments
1194
I think it's because they would use цей for a particular university. But my Ukrainian wife says "I am looking for the university" would be a perfectly good translation for "Я шукаю університет"
Unless you are looking for a university to enrol to. Depends on the context.
Isn't it a rule in English that u use an 'a' before consonants and 'an' for non-consonant (sorry, I do not know the word for it, I am not a native speaker)
- 1194
As a native speaker, I intuited that the choice of a or an depends on the sound of the following letter not whether it is a vowel (the word you were looking for) or not.
A google search confirmed that my intuition is considered correct.
But my intuition gets me in trouble with "h" ... I say "an historical ...," but others say "a historical." And Google says there are differing opinions on that one.
- 278
So, with regard to the word ‘university’, the initial sound is actually the consonant sound /j/, so we say ‘a university’. If we look at your original question, the word ‘LP’ begins with a vowel sound, /e/. That is why we say ‘an LP’. Source: bbc.co.uk http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/askaboutenglish/2010/06/100622_aae_indefinite_articles_pron.shtml
