The trick to pronouncing the letter H is the following:  air must come out of your mouth!

 

A good way to see if you are pronouncing the letter H correctly is to put your hand in front of your mouth.  If you feel warm air coming out, then you are pronouncing it correctly.  The H sound is a relaxed sound; it should never be forced. 

 

On the other hand, if you feel warm air coming out even when you aren’t supposed to pronounce the H, hold it in!  This means you’re over-aspirating.

 

It is important to remember that H is not always aspirated in English.  When adopting words from French (i.e. hour, honest, honour and all their derivatives, such as hourly, dishonest, honourable etc.) and Spanish (i.e. hombre), English decided to keep the H silent.  Therefore, no air comes out.  In addition, the letter H is silent in the following situations:

 

·         at the end of word preceded by a vowel, e.g. cheetah, Sarah, messiah;

·         between two vowels, e.g. annihilate, vehement, vehicle;

·         after the letter 'r', e.g. rhyme, rhubarb, rhythm;

·         after the letters 'ex', e.g. exhausting, exhibition, exhort;

·         after the letter ‘w’, e.g.  whistle, while, where, when, what, whether.

 

1.       I ate a ham.  It was horrible!

2.      Hath Hazel asthma?

3.      One hundred air-inhaling elephants.

4.      The heir’s hair gets into the heir’s ear.

5.      The hares’ ears heard ere the hares heeded.

6.      His hat hit Horace, so Horace hollered horribly.

7.      Horrible Heidi hears hairy Horace holler.

8.      How high His Highness holds his haughty head!

9.      He bade him eat his own hot ham, so his own hot ham he ate.

10.  The hedge hindered the homicidal hombre from hurting himself.

11.   Harry Hunt hunts heavy hairy hares.
Does Harry Hunt hunt heavy hairy hares?
If Harry Hunt hunts heavy hairy hares,
Where are the heavy hairy hares Harry Hunt hunts?