It is "A unique.....".

Maybe someone BE (like Marianne/ archfarchnad) could expalin the grammer.


:)

Immer
"an" wenn du einen Vokal sprichst
"a" wenn du keinen sprichst.
Egal wie du es schreibst.

Also a uniquw

@minu: Just wondering ... Is there a special reason for always using 4 lines (sometimes more) for just one smiley? It's not really a waste of resources, I know, but it forces me to use the scroll-bar much more often than I would want to.

To answer the request for an explanation from a native British English speaker, may I offer the following?

The a/an thing depends upon the pronunciation of the word following the indefinite article. That is why we have "a horse" and "a hound", in which the 'h' is pronounced, but "an honour" and "an heir", in which it is not. We also have the interesting case of "a hotel" or "an hotel", both of which can be regarded as correct, the choice depending upon the individual speaker's preferred pronunciation of the word "hotel".

In the case of "unique", the word is pronounced as if it started with a 'y', i.e. it sounds like "you neek" (almost "junihk" auf deutsch) and the consonantal effect of the 'y' sound forces the use of "a" rather than "an".

I hope that that is clear.

@ AndreasS
Yeah. I am a little claustrophobic!

:o)

Ever thought of therapy? Phobias can be treated quite well, but few victims know that.

To continue JoeW's point, it's perceived to be good English to precede the word "historic" with "an". This would make sense if people said "an 'istoric", but most people say "an historic", which seems to be a complete waste of effort to me - "a historic" flows off the tongue far more easily.

I personally would never write or say "an hotel" or "an historic".

Ed: so we can take it that _unpersonally_ you will say "an hotel". Or would you mind explaining your usage of "personally"?

@ AndreasS

I knew you would say that!
;o)

If you're looking for things to criticise, I don't think my use of the word "personally" in the posting above, although unnecessary and superfluous, is a particularly heinous crime compared to some of the crap that gets posted on here.

And are you really Werner?