"Se mi havus uzantnomon, mi povus ensaluti."

Translation:If I had a username, I could log in.

July 12, 2015

14 Comments

HWF10

I don't speak English... But why not "If I had AN username, I could log in"?

December 10, 2015

hellomidnight

People use the a/an rule based on the sound the first syllable of a word begins with, not the actual letter it begins with (as you might have learned in ESL classes). Username starts with a 'y' sound (the same as in yellow or yak), and the 'y' sound is considered a consonant in English, and so we use 'a' rather than 'an'. An username would sound unnatural, because it's like you're saying, "An yusername'.

You'll see the same thing happen in American English with the word 'herb'. Americans drop the h and pronounce it 'erb', and therefore they say 'an herb' (an erb) rather than 'a herb', even though the second, according to a strict interpretation of the a/an rule, should be correct.

December 11, 2015

HWF10

Oh! I think I got it... So, when the letter works as a semivowel, we don't use "an"... Dankon!

Yes exactly :)

I keep writing "If I had a username, then I could log in.", I keep getting marked wrong, and I keep reporting it.

It's a valid translation.

And I

You can either “log in” or “log on” when you begin a computer session. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) defines the two verbal phrases this way: “To enter into a computer the information required to begin a session.”

July 12, 2015