TYPICAL ERROR Dad bought me a iPad for my birthday.
CORRECTION Dad bought me an iPad for my birthday.
EXPLANATION Notice that a iPad is a little awkward to say because the vowel sound a is followed by the vowel sound i. Whenever such situations arise, we use an instead of a: it sounds better to say an iPad than a iPad.
Note that we also use an before words like hour and heir, which we pronounce as our and air, with a vowel sound at the start of the word. There are also words that start with vowels but that we say as if they started with a consonant. Some examples of such words are ewe, once-a-week and utopian, which we pronounce as you, wunce-a-week and you-topian. Before these consonant-sounding words, we do not use an: we say a ewe, a once-a-week lesson and a utopian world.
Select a or an to insert in each of these sentences as appropriate.