Pronounce English Accurately

Video Text

/h/ is a glottal fricative. The air is constricted right back in the larynx and is forced out with friction noise.

/h - h - h/

/h/ cannot occur in final position, so we have examples of initial and medial position only.

In initial position:

'hat'

'hand'

'heavy'

'hoop'

'who' - notice the spelling!

'height'

'heard'

'history'

'helicopter'

And in medial position:

'ahead'

'behind'

'rehearse'

're-heat'

'anyhow'

'behaviour'

'unhappy'

It is important that the sound comes from the larynx, the glottis, and not from the uvular position. English /h/ should not have a rough sound - not /χ/ or /ʁ/, which are common variants of the equivalent sound in many languages. Getting it wrong won't impede conversation, but it doesn't sound nice.

There are a few words spelt with 'h' in which there is no /h/ sound:

hour and its derivatives - hourly, hourglass

honour and its derivatives - honourable, dishonourable

honest, honesty, honestly

heir, heiress, heirloom and heirship, but inheritance has /h/

vehicle in British English usually has no /h/, but vehicular does.

exhaust, exhausted and exhaustion.

'Hotel' and 'history' and its derivatives are now normally pronounced with /h/ and should be preceded by 'a' not 'an'. At one time it was fashionable to pronounce these words in a French way with no /h/ and to precede them with 'an': 'an otel', 'an istoric event'. This is no longer normal at all and they should be pronounced as they are spelt, 'a hotel', 'a historic event'.

The name of the letter is 'aitch', not 'haitch', which is low class.

A couple of practice sentences with /h/:

Hardly had he heard the horn hoot before Henry hastened home.

Hideous Horace hastily hid all his halibuts in his hamper.