eli5 Why, in English Grammer, is it always an “an” before an acronym? Even if the acronym doesn’t start with a vowel?

Question

eli5 Why, in English Grammer, is it always an “an” before an acronym? Even if the acronym doesn’t start with a vowel?

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Answer 1

It’s not. The word “an” is used before a word that starts with a vowel sound. How the following word is spelled is irrelevant, only how it’s pronounced.

For example, you would say “an MBA” because MBA is pronounced like “em bee ae”. But you would say “a TLA” because TLA is pronounced like “tee ell ae”.