A or an?

[PrettyCandles]

Before 'unique'?

Although it starts with a vowel, the vowel itself begins with a consonant sound: yoo-neek.

a.

As you say, it starts with a consonant sound.

A.

Definitely "a"

We are presenting a united front, then?

For once and at the question.

And what about before words beginning with 'h'?

It depends if you pronounce the "h", it's the sound that matters more than the actual letter.

So I would say "a hotel", "a house" etc

But some people say "an 'otel"

I can't think offhand of any words where I don't pronounce the h myself though....

oh minefield. Isn't it 'an hotel' because its french? I would say "an otel" but i would say " A Horse "

....But, then again..... DS2 does say " An Nellycopter"

Interesting little bit of pedant-trivia: certain citrus fruits were originally called 'noranges', because they came from Spain (naranjas). But 'a norange' gradually evolved into 'an orange'.

The reverse happened with newts and nicknames - they gained the 'n' from the 'an' :)

Again the words beginning with 'h' you would say 'a' for those starting with an aitch sound (history, hammer) and 'an' for those starting with a vowel sound (honest, hour).
The only odd ones I can think of at the moment are 'historic' and 'hotel' where you would tend to say 'an' instead of 'a' because it flows better. (Maybe because of the stress is on the 2nd syllable not the 1st?)
Speakers who tend to drop aitches would say 'an' with words like history and hammer because trying to say 'a 'ammer' would be difficult!

There are four words in English that start with a silent "h": hour, heir, honour and honest.

Saying "an" before any other words beginning with "h" is just pretentious.

and saying "haitch" is cringeworthy.

(Not accusing anyone here of doing that, but I hear it a lot)