A European Citizens Initiative wants to introduce a Wealth Tax (and they need your help)
A European Citizens Initiative wants to introduce a Wealth Tax (and they need your help)
Nous voulons un impôt européen sur les grandes fortunes pour financer la transition climatique et sociale et aider les pays victimes des dérèglements climatiques.
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I only do this as I like to learn new things myself and appreciate if people correct me.
The title is wrong. It should be “A European…” rather than “An European…”.
The way you can decide which one to use is by looking at the proceeding words first syllable sound. If it has a vowel sound you use an if it doesn’t, then you use a. It’s important to note it’s vowel sound and not just a vowel.
Examples:
- A teacher
- An apple
- A car
- An hour (note it starts with a vowel sound, but not a vowel)
- A European
- An excellent teacher
Thank you for the correction. I wasn't sure (but also to lazy to check)
I've edited the title
No problem. Thank you for being receptive to my comment.
Sometimes people get mad, and I don’t get why as I love to learn new things and it may help other people who may be non-native speakers to learn the quirks of English.
Here are some possible reasons for people getting mad if you're really wondering why it happens:
- unsolicited advice can make people feel stupid (you love to learn, not everyone does)
- comments like yours can be used as a way of making fun of OP to disregard their point without actually interacting with it
- being corrected on a slip up and not something you sincerely don't know can be annoying (either towards the person correcting you or towards yourself for "not knowing something this simple")
- I don't know about others but my school life never taught me how to deal with criticism, if you made a mistake you didn't study properly and should go back to doing that instead of being explained what went wrong and why (this one might sound a worse than it really was but you get the point)
I'm not saying you did any of those things and I'm right there with you on learning but the knee-jerk reactions often do have a reason behind them. There's also the whole issue with how polarized social media is these days and the willingness to listen or admit to a mistake can be a difficult thing to stomach ("it's a sign of weakness").
I hope that helps!
Thanks for this. It really does help to understand the reasons.
I would say that I always try to preface my unsolicited advice to try and convey that I am not shitting on people or being condescending, as I did here. I do this so people can feel comfortable that I’m doing it to be nice and without any malice at all. I know you said I didn’t do any of these things, I just wanted to explain my thought process.
I get it. At the end of the day web is a vast space and people will have different experience functioning here, all we can do is try to convince others we're genuine and do our thing. I'm just happy whenever a positive interactions like your and OP's happen.
Sorry, native speaker and language teacher here and I disagree. This is dialect dependent, but in my dialect at least, it’s the glottal stop at the beginning of a vowel sound that triggers it. Saying “an European” for me is like saying “an yellow.”
I’m confused as you say you don’t agree, but also using an European doesn’t sound right, which is right as it should be a European as European starts with a yoo sound rather than a vowel sound.
It would be a yellow as yellow also starts with a consonant sound.
That’s because I read your comment wrong 😅
No harm no foul. 😊
Sadly i'm deaf, so i can't use sound to correct myself 🥹😭
I sh4uld meet an english deaf and usk them how do they manage those grammar rule. Their answer will be pretty fun :3