How to Link words that begin with H American English Pronunciation
In this video, I’m going to talk more about
linking and reduction. I have done an ‘Intro
to Linking’ video — if you haven’t seen
that already, you might want to check it out.
Today we’re going to talk about the situation
with the letter H beginning a word. Let’s
look at the following sentence as an example:
I’ll tell her we’re leaving. I’ll tell her
we’re leaving. I’ll tell her we’re leaving.
I’ll tell her we’re leaving. Could you tell
a difference in the two different ways I pronounced
this? I’ll tell her … er … I didn’t pronounce
the H in ‘her’. I’ll tell her we’re leaving.
I reduced the word ‘her’ by leaving out the
H. Perhaps you’ve noticed this. Native speakers
do it quite a lot.
Now, if you drop the H, you have to be certain
that you link it to the word before. Tell
her, tell her, it’s almost like it becomes
one word. Teh-ler, tell her. How do you think
I’m going to pronounce this phrase? I’m going
to drop the H, reducing the word ‘he’. And
because I’m going to do that, I want to make
sure that I really link things. So I’m actually
going to almost think of the Z sound as beginning
a word ‘zi’. Wuh-zi there? Was he there? Was
he there? Try saying that all very smooth
and linked. Was he there? Was he there?
Before we go further, let’s talk quickly about
punctuation. A period, a comma, a colon, a
semicolon, a dash: these things will all signify
a stop, a break, a pause. So, we don’t want
to link sounds over that kind of punctuation.
Let’s take a look at an example sentence.
At first he never came; he now comes regularly.
Notice there was that pause there where the
semicolon is. And because of that I didn’t
link, and I didn’t drop the H in ‘he’ the
second time. At first he never came: I do
drop that H, reducing the word and linking.
At first he, at first he, at first he never
came; he now comes regularly.
So we’ve looked at ‘he’ and ‘her’, what are
some other possibilities? If we’re going to
reduce a word, it has to be an unstressed
word. So let’s review which words we’ll stress,
and which ones will be unstressed. Content
words are stressed. These are nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and adverbs, in general. Function
words will be unstressed. These are words
that don’t have a meaning on their own, like
‘with’ or ‘if’. These are prepositions, conjunctions,
articles, and helping verbs.
So, common function words beginning with H:
has, have, had. These are helping verbs. Example:
What have you done? What have you done? Notice
that the H is dropped in ‘have’, and the vowel
is actually reduced from aa to the schwa:
uv, uv, uv. That is how we’re pronouncing
the word ‘have’ in the sentence. What have,
what have, what have you done? And do note
that it’s linked to everything around it.
What have you, what have you, what have you
done?
Another example: my friend has seen it twice.
The word ‘has’ is pronounced without the H
and the vowel sound is reduced to the schwa.
My friend has, has, has, my friend has seen
it twice. Also, again, it is linked to everything
around it. My friend has seen it twice. Now,
I want to point out that in ‘What have you
done?’, ‘have’ is the helping verb for ‘done’.
And in ‘My friend has seen it twice’, ‘has’
is the helping verb for ‘seen’.
Now if these words were the only verb in the
sentence, the main verb in the sentence, they
wouldn’t be reduced. Because then they would
be the verb, not a helping verb. For example,
I have two. Now, I may say ‘have’ very quickly,
but I’m probably not going to drop the H,
and I’m not going to reduce the vowel. I have
two. Because it is the only verb in the sentence.
Therefore, it is not a helping verb. It is
the main verb. I have two.
How do you think I will pronounce ‘her’ here?
If you guessed er, you’re right. I saw her
sister in Chicago. I saw – er – sister,
saw her sister, saw her sister. I saw her
sister in Chicago.
And here, how will I pronounce ‘his’? Iz,
iz, I will drop that H. What was his name
again? What was, iz, name again? What was
his name again? What was his name again? And
how will I pronounce ‘him’? I will drop that
H. ‘Im, ‘im. I told him no. I told – im
– no. I told him no. I told him no. How will
I pronounce ‘his’? I’m going to drop the H.
Do you remember John? This is his sister.
This is – is – sister. This is his sister.
As you listen to native speakers, keep this
in mind. Try to identify it and then imitate
it. And when you feel comfortable, bring it
into your everyday speech. That’s it, and
thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.