a utility VS an utility?

Question

is "u" always considered to be a semivowel? how do i use utility with an article?a utility or an utility? thank you in advacne for your answers! :

Philip · Accepted Answer

In my school years, I learned that the semi-vowels are y and w. As far as I know, u is always a vowel, although it has more than one pronunciation, depending on the word. A utility, because it sounds as if it begins with the semi-vowel y.

An unhappy ending.

Yoong Liat · Answer

Whether you use 'a' or 'an' depends on the pronunciation of the first syllable of the word.

'A utility' because the first syllable of the word is pronounced 'you'. Since 'y' is not a vowel, you have to use 'a'.

Similarly, a unicorn, a uniform, a university.

Anonymous · Answer

Pardon, but your example is incorrect.

I'm a phonetician, and in order to keep this simple, let's just compare the different sounds of the letter "u" in "unhappy" and the sound of the "u" in "utility", in the first case, a phoneme that represents the sound found in the u of unhappy would be the short vowel /^/ found in words such as "hut" "strut" "love" and so on.

In the case of "utility" there's a different sound, represented by two phonemes, and not just one, the first being phoneme /j/ which is a semi-vowel, therefore, a is used before utility, and AN is used before "unhappy".

To make it clear, not all "vowels" are produced in the same places of articulation.

You use "AN" when preceeding a *VOWEL SOUND". Which doesn't necessarily mean that it is a written vowel.

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Fivejedjon · Answer

Anonymousfeel free to write phonetics questions to xxxx @ yyy dot com

Also feel free to post questions on phonetics in this forum.

Paul is quite right in saying that we use 'an' before vowel sounds, which do not, in what we are talking about, include /j/ or /w/:

So it's: a book, a European (/w/), a word (/w/), a university /j/, a ouijah board (/w/),
but it's: an egg (/e/), an hour (/a?/).

Note also that it's the word immediately following the article that is important:

a European, an honest European; a word, an easy word; a university, an unusual university;
an egg, a bad egg; an hour, a tragic hour.

Anonymous · Answer

anonymousa utility or an utility?

Anonymous · Answer

It should be pronounced as 'A utility'.

a utility VS an utility?

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