>>>It's the same in English- the indefinite article a becomes an before a word starting with a vowel.
>>>
>>> For u it depends how it is pronounced - I think
>>>
>>>A U-Turn
>>>An unrelated matter
>>
>>On a related note, same goes for words beginning with an aitch - "an honorable exception".
>>
>>Btw, a question for the anglophone majority here: is there a word in English which begins with a "u" and has it pronounced as u? Not as uh as in under, not as yoo as in universe, but as u as in butcher, lubricate?
>
>to me butcher and lubricate are different sounds.

To me they are the same sound, but of different length - the u in lubricate being same as oo in zoo. But that is the u sound as heard in most of the (Indo?-)European languages, short or long. It seems that these few cases have been asleep during both vowel shifts and they stayed with the original sound; the rest of the u's went into uhs and yoos. I just wonder if any of the few leads a word.