Pronunciation of the silent h in North American English.
What is a silent letter?
A silent letter is a letter in a word that we don’t pronounce. A few examples include the first /d/ in Wednesday, and the /k/ in knee. The letter h is special for a few reasons.
We don’t say it at the end of a word. If it’s at the end of a word it’s silent, or it’s part of a composite sound like “cough” or “British”.
We pronounce the /h/ sound when it is at the start of a word.
There are exceptions to this! For example, hour, honour, honest, and heir all have a silent h.
Linking, Function Words and The Letter h
Linking is basically when we join sounds from two different words together. There are rules to this of course, but you can see our Linking worksheet for more information. Function words are “grammar words” and include prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, pronouns, possessives, question words etc.
Function words are not stressed in a sentence.
When a word that begins with an h is also a function word, the h is usually silent. This means that you will probably need to use a consonant-vowel link or vowel to vowel link.
For example, in the sentence “I want to see her”, her is a pronoun and therefore it’s a function word. As a result, we link these two words and say, “ see-er”, not “see her”.
Let’s practice!
Read each sentence and decide if the word beginning with an h is a content or function word. Then decide if the “h” is silent. Practice saying them aloud with linking where necessary. If you want, send us a recording of you reading these sentences out loud! We'd love to hear you. Hello@canadianaenglish.ca
In Canada, we have a harsh winter for half of the year; however, in southern Ontario, the other half of the year is very beautiful.
I have been waiting in front of her house for 15 minutes. It’s very cold out here; I had better go inside and wait in the hall.
She was disappointed herself for not confirming the date ahead of time.
Her girlfriend was the same height as her brother. They also had the same coat and hair colour; from the back you could hardly tell them apart.
They are much happier now that they have a new family doctor.
Answer Key
bold = silent
In Canada, we have a harsh winter for half of the year; however, in southern Ontario, the other half of the year is very beautiful.
I have been waiting in front of her house for 15 minutes. It’s very cold out here, I had better go inside and wait in the hall.
She was disappointed in herself for not confirming the date ahead of time.
Her girlfriend was the same height as her brother. They also had the same coat and hair colour; from the back you could hardly tell them apart.
They are much happier now that they have a family doctor.
Have any questions for us? We would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below or send us an email. Hello@candianaenglish.ca
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