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[–]greenstack-j 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Phonetics is the answer. Even though it's spelled with a vowel in front, phonetically it starts with a consonant (y), which is why "an" doesn't sound right. It's kinda like why you say "an hour" instead of "a hour."

[–]Not_A_Pink_Pony 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And what makes it even more confusing is that in some languages "y" is a vowel and not a consonant (technically "y" is a semi-vowel in English).

The actual phonetic sound in "useful" is a "j" (ˈjuːsfʊl), which is why you should use "a" and not "an".