المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة pilotuh

The U in university is pronounced with a long ‘u’ sound which sounds like ‘yew’ and is written as j in the phonetic alphabet. So, although the letter is a vowel, it is not pronounced like one in 'university' because it does not have a vowel sound. We therefore say ‘a university’.



The U in umbrella is pronounced as a vowel sound ( Λ using the phonetic alphabet) and so we use ‘an’. We therefore say ‘an umbrella’.