How to Pronounce F and H Sounds | Learn English Pronunciation Course

I'm going to focus on two consonant sounds in English.

The /f/ sound and the /h/ sound.

These are very important sounds in English, so I want you to be able to pronounce them

correctly.

Let's start with two example words.

The first example word is the word ‘fat’.

Can you hear the /f/ sound?

‘fat’ Now, the second word is ‘hat’.

This time it's an /h/ sound, ‘hat’.

‘fat’ ‘hat’

Can you hear the difference?

Well if you keep watching, we are going to practice together.

And I promise you by the end of this video, you will pronounce them correctly.

So keep watching.

Before we learn about these two consonant sounds the f /f/ sound and the /h/ sound in

English, you need to know about the I.P.A. spelling.

It's very important.

You can also watch me, and how I move my mouth, and of course always try to repeat after me.

I know you can make these sounds, guys, so let's do it together.

Now, let's first learn how to make the /f/ sound in English.

So it's an unvoiced sound.

You are not going to use your voice.

You're not going to feel any vibration in your throat.

And what you're going to do is put your teeth against your bottom lip,

and you're going to push out some air through your teeth and bottom lip, okay.

/f/ Please try and do it.

Repeat after me.

/f/ /f/

/f/ Let's practice with the word ‘fat’.

Please repeat after me.

‘fat’ ‘fat’

‘fat’ Good.

Let's now practice producing the sound /h/ in English.

So as you can see your mouth is wide open.

It's voiceless as well, so no… no sound.

No vibration.

Mouth wide open and you're going to push out the air with your throat.

It has to come from down there, so… /h/

Please watch my mouth, try to repeat after me.

/h/ /h/

/h/ Let's practice with the word ‘hat’.

Please repeat after me.

‘hat’ ‘hat’

‘hat’ Good.

Let's now practice with minimal pairs; two words they sound very very much alike but

the sounds are actually different and they are very good for you to hear the difference

between the two sounds.

But first, let's practice the sounds themselves.

Please watch my mouth and repeat after me.

First the /f/ sound.

/f/ /f/

/f/ Now the /h/ sound.

/h/ /h/

/h/ Let's do the two sounds together.

Please repeat after me.

/f/ /h/

/f/ /h/

/f/ /h/

And now let's take our words.

Please repeat after me, guys.

‘fat’ ‘hat’

‘fat’ ‘hat’

‘fat’ ‘hat’

Good job.

Okay, guys.

Let's go through minimal pairs together.

Please watch how I move my mouth and repeat after me.

Let's get started.

faced haste

fad had

fail hail

fair hair

fall hall

fang hang

fare hare

farm harm

fart heart

fate hare

fear hear

fed head

fee he

feed heed

feel heel

fees he's

feet heat

fell hell

fence hence

fey hey

fight height

fill hill

fir her

fit hit

five hive

fizz his

foal whole

foam home

foe hoe

foes hoes

fog hog

force horse

found hound

four haw

fowl howl

funky hunky

funny honey

furl hurl

phase haze

phone hone

Great job, guys.

Let's now practice with sentences containing these consonant sounds.

The first sentence is: ‘Please feel her fur heel.’

Please repeat after.

‘Please feel her fur heel.’

The second sentence: ‘The whole foal has fair hair.’

Please repeat after me.

‘The whole foal has fair hair.’

And finally: ‘He'd feed the hog in the fog.’

Please repeat.

‘He'd feed the hog in the fog.’

Very good.

Let's move on.

Let's now move on to listening practice.

I'm now going to show you two words.

I will say one of the two words, and I want you to listen very carefully and

to tell me if this word is, ‘a)’ or ‘b)’

Let's get started.

Let's start with our first words.

You see you have word ‘a’ word ‘b’.

Now which one do I say?

Listen.

‘hair’ One more time.

‘hair’ Was this ‘a’ or ‘b’?

‘b’, hair.

‘a’ would be pronounced ‘fair’.

Our next two words.

Listen to me, guys.

‘funny’ ‘funny’

It's ‘a’, ‘funny’.

‘b’ would be ‘honey’.

‘horse’ ‘horse’

‘It's ‘b’, ‘horse’.

‘a’ is ‘force’.

What about this one?

Listen.

‘hence’ ‘hence’

It's ‘b’ guys, ‘hence’.

‘a’ is fence.

‘fog’ ‘fog’

It's ‘a’, ‘fog’.

‘b’ would be ‘hog’.

Listen to me.

‘fowl’ ‘fowl’

It's ‘a’, ‘fowl’.

‘b’ is ‘howl’.

‘feet’ ‘feet’

‘a’?

‘b’?

What do you think?

It's ‘a’ guys, ‘feet’.

‘b’ is heat.

‘hear’ ‘hear’

It’s ‘b’ guys, ‘hear’.

‘a’ would be pronounced ‘fear’.

‘fall’ ‘fall’

It's ‘a’ guys, ‘fall’.

‘b’ is ‘hall’.

And our last two words.

Now listen to me.

‘haste’ ‘haste’

It's ‘b’, ‘haste’.

‘a’ would be ‘faced’.

Great job, guys.

I know you now understand the difference between this /f/ sound and this /h/ sound in English.

Of course it takes a lot more practice to be able to master these sounds but you can

do it.

So keep practicing, you will also train your ear to hear the differences between these

sound.

And obviously watch my other pronunciation videos.

I promise you they will help you improve your skills.

See you next time.

Thank you so much for watching, guys.

If you've liked it, show me your support, click ‘like’, subscribe to the channel,

put your comments below, and share this video.

See you.