When to use ‘A’ before words starting with a consonant sound

As mentioned earlier, you should use ‘a’ before words that begin with a consonant sound. This includes words starting with any of the 21 consonant letters in the English alphabet (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z).

For example:

• a book

• a chair

• a dog

• a university

• a yellow flower

• a unicorn

The key is to focus on the sound of the word, not just the first letter. Even if a word starts with a vowel letter, you would still use ‘a’ if the word begins with a consonant sound. For instance, ‘a one-of-a-kind item’ and ‘a European vacation’ both use ‘a’ because the words ‘one’ and ‘European’ start with a consonant sound.