Hello and welcome to LetThemTalk the channel that goes deeper into everything about the
And What I wanted to talk to you about today is when to pronounce and when not to pronounce
the H at the beginning of words in English.
So as I'm sure you know most of the time the H is pronounced.
But there are a few exceptions. Hour (pronounced in the same way as our OUR)
hourly. Honest and honesty and honestly
Honour, Honourable, honourably, Heir (pronounced in the same way as air AIR)
also heiress and heirloom. by the way an heirloom is a valuable object
that has belonged to a family for several generations.
for example, "this is my grandfather's watch, it's a family heirloom. "
If you're American you'll say 'ERB but I'm British I say HERB.
They say "I'd like some 'erbal tea" and I say "I would like some herbal tea. "
Now the reason why some words start with a silent H all comes down to etymology (that's
right my favourite subject etymology) All these words with a silent H at the beginning
come from French. In French as in Spanish the H at the beginning of a word is silent
but not in English as I keep telling my students.
They're from French, are they? but we pronounce the H there. Ah Yes, but when they entered
the English language the H was silent. But over time this has changed. I'll return to
But first of all it's important of course, to get the pronunciation right but remember
too that the article that precedes the H word will also change.
If the H is silent then the indefinite article will be AN and this is important for written
but A hat "It's an honour to meet you. "
For the definite article will be THE (THEE) before a silent H and THE before a voiced
H "The (thee) heir to the throne"
"The hand is quicker than the eye. " "The (thee) hour is now"
Now these are the general rules but I should say that you might hear some regional differences.
For example I'm from London and in the London accent the H is often dropped at the beginning
of words so if you are listening to a Londoner or you're in London you might here someone
say . "an 'ammer", "You should use an 'ammer" in Received Pronunciation it would be "you
should use a hammer"). "He's the 'ead of the company" and not the "head of the company"
which would be the standard form
And one final point as I mentioned before our language is still changing.
When words enter the language they are pronounced one way - closer to the source language but
that changes as native speakers use the word.
Look at this diagram for the word HOSPITAL As you can see it used to be AN HOSPITAL with
a silent H. but by the first world war it had become, almost universally, A HOSPITAL
This is interesting because we are in the middle of a change. As you can see HISTORIC
and 'ISTORIC are both still being used but HISTORIC is winning the battle. And I say
HISTORIC by the way But you'll still read AN HISTORIC EVENT as well as A HISTORIC EVENT.
So do be aware of that especially with written English
That's it I hope you found that useful thank you for watching more stay mellow and I'll