The way I categorize English sounds, we have successfully covered a majority of the English consonants. There’s a few stragglers left that are more unique and individual in my mind so we’ll talk about them next.

First is the H-sound.

The H-sound /h/ is a voiceless, glottal, fricative consonant.

Now we’ve got the words voiceless and fricative. In this series, you should know by now what those individually mean.

Glottal is the word used to reflect the area of the mouth and throat of most importance. The glottis refers to the level of the vocal cords. That means there is no special lip shape, no special tongue placement.

THE SOUND

The H-sound /h/ is produced as a fricative. This means that turbulent airflow is required. The area of narrowing that creates that turbulence is your throat. Whereas in other sounds, it may be narrowing at the level of the lip and teeth (like in the F-sound or V-sound), narrowing at the level of the tongue and the roof of the mouth (like in the S-sound or SH-sound), the H-sound is produced by narrowing in the throat.

You may even think the H-sound sounds like an audible sigh.

Verbal cues

There are no special mouth, lip or tongue positions. So if your tongue is up or elevate, your lips are in a funny or unrelaxed shape, your jaw is sticking out, or anything else - stop it. To return to a resting, neutral face shape, just take 10 deep breaths. Relax. Breath In, breath out. Now stop, pay attention to how your lip, tongue, jaw, throat feel and their relative positions.

This is your neutral resting mouth and throat state.

Start here.

Visual Cues

Remember that the sound is a fricative. It is an audible sound that can be held for several seconds. It isn’t an explosive release of energy but a constant airstream. You will naturally add a vowel sound to it the longer you extend the sound.

Heeeeeeeeeeee

Haaaaaaaaaaaa

Hooooooooooo

Huuuuuuuuuuu

Tactile Cues

Since this is an affricate sound, it starts at the alveolar ridge to produce the T-sound component. Then your tongue shifts backwards in the mouth along the roof of the mouth to the post-alveolar position. You should feel the tongue move back slightly along the roof of your mouth

The sound is voiceless. There should not be a buzzing sensation in your throat for the H-sound. Buzzing however is expected as you transition to your vowel sound. So as long as the beginning isn’t voiced, then it’s fine.

THE SOUND IN DIFFERENT POSITIONS.

Here's the sound in different positions of a word.

BEGINNING OF THE WORD - whole, him, who, hi, home

MIDDLE OF THE WORD - behave, behind, perhaps,

END OF THE WORD -

*NOTE - Notice how the H-sound is represented by the WH- or H-letter combinations. There are also no H-sounds at the end of a word.

SITUATIONS THAT SEEM LIKE THE SOUND BUT AREN'T

hour, herb, honor, heir, vehicle

In some situations the H-can be silent even when the H-letter appears at the beginning of the word. Furthermore, whether an H-letter is pronounced as an H-sound may depend regionally. For example, the general American English accent pronunciation of ‘herb’ is ‘erb’. The H-letter is silent. BUT in British English pronunciation, you do pronounce the H-letter as an H-sound. ‘Herb’ is pronounced ‘herb’

chest, shoot, there, rhino, phone, ghost, khaki

Notice how these words have an H-sound but it isn’t pronounced. As the second letter, I wanted to highlight that the H-letter may not be reflected as a pronounced H-sound.

booth, birth, sloth, ambush, beneath

When the H-letter appears at the end of the word, it is not actually producing the H-sound. This may be tricky for speakers of different languages where every letter ALWAYS produces a sound. There are many silent letters in English and H at the end of the word is one such situation.

WHY IT MAY BE HARD

The sound may be hard to pronounce for non-native English speakers who do not have the voiceless H-sound in their language. In some languages, the H-letter is ALWAYS silent which can be hard when in English, there are words where the H-letter is not silent.

For example, “I hate fruit” might sound more like “I ate fruit”

In some languages, the H-sound is represented by a different letter of the alphabet. This can be confusing if you know how to make the sound but don’t associate the H-sound with the H-letter.

There are also instances where the voiceless H-sound does not exist and is replaced by another sound instead.

WHAT TO DO

So let's say you do have trouble with your H-sound. What can you do about it.

Well here are the features of the H-sound.

Place of articulation - The glottis or at the level of the vocal cords. There is no restriction in the mouth, at the lips or with the tongue.
Manner of articulation - Frication. Airflow is through a narrow passage. Airflow is turbulent but continuous - like a whistle. It is turbulent because airflow is passing through a narrow passageway. The sound keeps coming out as long as you have air from the lungs to continue the airflow.
Voiced or unvoiced - voiceless (this means the vocal cords do not vibrate while producing the H-sound).

If you need to, practice pronouncing H-sound words so you become more comfortable and can resist muscle memory to avoid pronouncing the H-letter.

Here’s a list of H-words that MUST have an H-sound.

I’m breaking down every single sound down for you so that you can learn how to produce each sound in English accurately. Sometimes, we’ll have easier sounds and sometimes we’ll have harder sounds.

If you’ve grasped this sound, then great! But if you’ve got a tip that might work for others, or you took a while to produce this sound correct but something clicked for you, let me know down below in the comments. My goal is to have a community know what to do when they’re stuck!

The H-Sound