Grammar: A Anal Shot or An Anal Shot

[jonthedit]

Completely weird question, but which would be the correct case?

"Johnny will learn to give a anal shot."
Or
"Johnny will learn to give an anal shot."


I immediately think an, but it just sounds wrong... although this is an odd sentence in the first place.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

AN + vowel sound

So its '' an anal shot ''

EDIT: It could be '' a anal'' too.
There are some words that ignore that rule, just cause it sounds better.
An hour=Not vowel
So i say both are good but for pronunciation its better ''a anal''.

 

[jonthedit]

AN + vowel sound

So its '' an anal shot ''

I figured as much. Just sounds so weird... English is an interesting language.

Edit : Thanks for the more detailed edit!

 

[Luigi2012SM64DS]

An

 

[GamerzHell9137]

I figured as much. Just sounds so weird... English is an interesting language.

My final answer is '' An anal shot ''
Word Anal is made of 2 syllable.
A-nal and cause A is one of the vowel sounds its gonna be an.

Same things happens with ''An hour''
When you pronounce hour it sounds like '' Our '' and O is one of the vowels.

 

[Foxi4]

It depends on what sound follows the article. If it's a vowel sound, "a" is replaced with "an" to improve word flow, which is why we write "He is a US ambassador" but "He is an ambassador".

 

[ßleck]

It's "Johnny will learn to give an anal shot.".

The main rule is that "a" is used before words that begin with a consonant and "an" is used before words that begin with a vowel. But there are exceptions that many already pointed out. As far as I know there are only 3 exceptions. The first one is words that starts with an "h" which has no audible sound and is followed by a vowel, which means you should use "an". For example: "Typing this post took me an hour". The second exception is a word that starts with the letter "u" that makes the same sound as the "y" in the word "you", which means you should use "a". For example: "I just saw a unicorn". The last exception is with words that start with the letter "o" that sounds like the letter "w" in the word "war", which means you should use "a". For example: "That thing I just saw was a one-eyed unicorn".

 

[ShadowSoldier]

You could literally just say it out loud, and one of them will sound weird to say.

 

[decemberchild]

In order to eliminate the "exceptions," I don't think about what letter the word starts with. I think about how it sounds. Does the word start with a vowel sound, such as hour or eastern? If so, then you use the article an. Does the word start with a consonant sound, such as donkey or house? If so, then use the article a. Doing it this way completely eliminates the "exceptions," because in reality, there are no exceptions to this rule. One of the few rules of English that is always true.