This is a major hindrance in the English language amongst people who don’t quite master it. Amazingly it’s my second language… Anyway, a lot of people wonder when to write “a” and “an”.
First off, they are both the same thing. There’s absolutely no difference in meaning between “a” and “an”. It’s simply a pronunciation-related particularity of the language.
Just pronounce it out loud and you’ll know it looks weird:
- A flower
or
- An flower
I don’t know how more obvious it could be, pronouncing the N and then the F is simply awkward. So just remember this simple rule, there can never be two consonants or vowels in a row.
An flower and a alligator don’t work because there’s N and F following each other (2 consonants in a row) and A and A following each other (2 vowels in a row).
There’s also the plural trick. Look at the following:
1. “The flowers like the Sun.”
2. “The flower likes the Sun.”
That’s correct, however the following isn’t:
3. “The flower like the Sun.”
4. “The flowers likes the Sun.”
Case 3 is actually particular in that it is an incomplete sentence, however not an incorrect form. If the intent was to say the the flower likes (as in loving) the Sun light, then the form is wrong, however, by completing the sentence as follows it could be right: “The flower, like the Sun, has a nice yellow color.”
See how without the S at the end of like, the verb takes a comparative form. That’s why the S is there.
Case 4 is a major mistake, and an easy one to make because it doesn’t sound entirely wrong. However, don’t use it, it makes absolute non-sense. However, the following is correct: “The flowers, like the Sun, have a nice yellow color.”
The whole meaning is changed just by the comma in this instance.
If you have to have a trick to remember, think that there’s always only one S if it’s a verb. Here’s another example:
“He makes this happen all the time.”
“They make this happen all the time.”
This one might be a bit more obvious, as “they makes” sounds more incorrect than “the flowers likes”.
