LEARN ENGLISH – 4
Khaliqur Rahman
The Learners in general are not familiar with the Sounds of English as in most schools in India, they start with the Alphabet. We, therefore, introduce the sounds with the help of audios and now with the British Council phonemic chart and ask the Learners to keep learning them with patience and practice.
It is easier for them to discover that an goes with a vowel sound and a with a consonant sound. There are no exceptions to this rule anymore! Moreover, they discover and learn the whole pattern: that along with an, to is tu, r is r and the is thi before a vowel sound, but before a consonant sound, along with a, r is silent, to is ta and the is tha
They do like the statements of the rule that has examples of the rule:
r is pronounced only before a vowel aarizpranaunstaunlibifooravaual
r’s are pronounced only before vowels aazapranaunstaunlibifoovaualz
Let’s now come back to Articles. A and an generally mean one (any one). Therefore, a or an goes with a countable noun in singular.The nouns: stars, coins, notes are countless but countable. That is why you say: 7 stars, 10 ten paise coins and 100 one-rupee-notes.
In order to make good use of this powerful rule you have to keep in mind that English has forty four sounds, like Hindi has 52. Hindi is written with the help of 52 letters. Therefore, each letter in Hindi denotes one sound. In English, it is not so. Forty four sounds are denoted by twenty six letters. That is why in English we have the problem of spelling and pronunciation. Out of the forty four sounds of English, twenty are vowel sounds and twenty four consonant sounds. Therefore, the indefinite article a can come before any of the twenty four consonant sounds. And, the indefinite article an can similarly come before any of the twenty vowel sounds. The key to phonetic symbols in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English or Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English explains each sound in English with symbols and examples of words in which they occur. The entries in the dictionary inside tell you if the word in question is a noun; if it is a noun, whether it is countable or uncountable.
If you come through this way, I am sure, you will never be troubled with questions like whether it is : a year or an year*, a hotel or an hotel, a humble man or an humble man, a university or an university*, a European student or an European student*.
The dictionary will quickly tell you that year starts with a consonant sound as it is in yes or yellow and so do the words: university and European. Therefore, it is: a year, a university and a European student.
A hotel and a humble man are correct, if hotel and humble are pronounced with an h-sound. An hotel and an humble man are correct if hotel and humble are pronounced without the h-sound, in which case they start with a vowel sound. But this is old-fashioned. Similarly, it is: a money order but an MO.
It is possible for an adjective to come in between the indefinite article and the countable noun in singular:
a boy a good boy an intelligent boy
a cow a black cow an Indian cow
It is also possible for an adverb to come in between the indefinite article and the adjective:
a good boy an intelligent boy
a very good boy a very intelligent boy
an extremely good boy an extremely intelligent boy
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