Silent H and H muet and H aspire

A regular cause of confusion, the sound of the French letter H is debated among beginners and it’s use within the language creates frustration. So this article is all about simplifying the letter H.

Firstly, it’s important to know that the French letter H is silent 100% of the time when in French words. That’s right, it doesn’t matter if it starts a word or is somewhere in the middle, the letter H is always silent, except when next to the letter “c” like this “ch”. The “ch” letter combination makes either a “sh” sound like in the word “sheep” or a “k” sound like in the word “kite”.

Listen to these French words containing the letter H;

You’ll notice there is no sound on the H but does have a letter name in French called “hache”. Click on the link to listen to the name of the letter H.

Your Spell and Sound French Chart with Examples illustrates this in the H box on the consonants page. You will notice a lack of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol and in it’s place the words “no sound” written.

So, if the letter H has no sound, what more needs to be said about it? Why the long article?

Well, just like many things about the French language, it’s more complicated than that. The letter H appears in the French Language in two different ways;

H muet
H aspiré

Both are important only when a word starts with the letter H. So, words starting with the letter H can be H muet or H aspiré but how do you know which is which?

Unfortunately, you can’t tell them apart by looking at them and there seems to be some debate among experts as to why the two forms exist and where they originated from.

Our goal is to show you in a few short paragraphs, how to use H muet and H aspiré in French.

What’s the difference between H muet and H aspiré?

Learning a little about French liaisons and the elision process will help answer this question.

French Liaisons

Briefly, French liaisons are sound links between two words. When the first word has a final and silent consonant and the second word has a starting vowel, the final consonant is voiced (although it often changes sound) and is linked to the word starting with the vowel. Liaisons help the two words sound less awkward when put together. They work in a similar way to how we say “an orange” in English, the letter and sound of the “n” joins the two words.

Elision Process

The elision process is often referred to as the French contraction process (although this is not entirely true). It is the removal of the vowel and sound from the first word, which are often articles and pronouns like “je”, “que”, “le”, “la”, “ce”, and “de” when the next word starts with a vowel.

Listen to these contracted French words;

H muet follows both Liaison and Elision Rules

Basically, you know you’re looking at an H muet word when it contracts with another word as in “l’heure” or it forms a liaison as in “les heures” (the s in “les” becomes a zz sound).

Here are some more examples of French words starting with the letter H making the elision process and following the liaison rules;

H aspiré words do NOT follow the liaison and elision rules

You know your listening to an H aspiré word because it sounds a little awkward when put with other words. They never follow the French liaison rules or the elision process so they sound a little “stop-start” during normal French speech. Take for example the words “en haut”. Haut is an H aspiré word so no liaison in formed with the word “en” before it. The combination of the sounds makes “en haut“.

Memory Aid: Aspirate the Awkward! If it sounds like it should make a liaison or elision, but doesn’t, you know the H word you’re looking at is an H aspiré word.

Here are some examples of H apiré words;

H apiré words are found in many dictionaries with a small notation next the word. This is sometimes an asterisk or a symbol like this ` that helps the reader identify which words do not make elisions and liaisons.

You can view our list of H Aspire words and download the H aspire list in pdf by following the links.

A handy “rule of thumb” for knowing which H word is muet or aspiré would be helpful but unfortunately I don’t know of one, you just need to learn which French words starting with the letter H are muet and aspiré. If you’re familiar with a handy “rule of thumb” for the letter H in French, we’d love to hear it. Please contact us by our contact form or comment below.