Glottal fricative /h/

 

Glottal fricative /h/

/h/ is quite easy to recognize for most non-native speakers. An exception might be French speakers since the letter H is always silent in French. In Britain, using or not using the /h/ sound can signify class and status (posher speakers vs ‘H’ droppers). But in American English, unless ‘H’ is silent, H is always pronounced. 

Silent H words

The sound /h/ is spelt with an ‘H’ or ‘WH.’ With ‘WH,’ either /w/ or /h/ is pronounced, but not both. When ‘H’ is combined with other letters like TH, SH, CH, PH, GH, and RH, they make entirely different sounds: ‘TH’ makes /θ/ or /ð/; ‘SH’ makes /ʃ/; ‘CH’ makes /tʃ/; ‘PH’ makes /f/ (except for ‘SHEPHERD’ where ‘PH’ makes /p/). ‘GH’ can be either silent or make /f/, /g/ or /p/. H is silent in ‘RH.’ 

These words have silent ‘H’: 

what, which, where, when, why, honour, hour, honest, heir, herb, vehicle, vehement, exhausting, exhilarating 

/h/, no-/h/ minimal pairs

This is the minimal pairs of /h/ and non-/h/

had add

hair air

hall all

harm arm

heart art

heat eat

hedge edge

heal eel

hate eight

high eye

hill ill

hold old

his is

/f/, /h/ minimal pairs

/f/ and /h/ are voiceless fricatives, and can continue the sound. They differ in the way air escapes from the mouth. For the /f/ sound, air escapes between top teeth and bottom lips. For /h/ air escapes from the glottis.

fat hat

fair hair

fall hall

feel heel

fee he

feet heat

fail hail

farm harm

five hive

force horse

fare hare

feed he’d

fell hell

fence hence

few hew

foal whole

foam home

fog hog

furl hurl

phase haze