Consonant Fricative: h sound /h/

Listen to the h sound

How to pronounce the h sound

The h sound is unvoiced, and the vocal cords do not vibrate during the production of this sound.

To create the h sound, the deep back of the tongue slightly constricts within the throat. The upper/front part of the tongue as well as the lips will often move into the shape of surrounding sounds at the same time as the h sound is being produced.

A common error ESL/ELL students make is overproducing this sound by constricting the tongue too much within the throat or by voicing the sound.

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Common h sound spellings

spelling	example		other pronunciations for spelling
h	hello happy behind		none
wh	who whole whose		w sound (when)

NOTE: When the letters wh are followed by the oo sound (such as the word who) or the long o sound (such as the word whole), the letters wh are likely to be pronounced as an h sound. When the letters wh are followed by any other sounds, the wh is likely to be pronounced as a w sound (examples include the words when and why).

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The h sound in suffixes

none

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Non-phonetic h sound words

none

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Compare h sound and no h sound

A good way to practice hearing and saying the h sound is to alternate saying minimal pair words that do not contain that sound. Notice that the following words are identical, except that the word on the left begins with an h sound and the word on the right does not.

h sound		no h sound
heat hand heart hitch hair hear/here		eat and art itch air ear

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Pronuncian Lessons

  

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