Hi again and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy, and this is our 113th episode.

A chameleon is a kind of lizard that changes color to match its surroundings.

This helps it blend in and avoid being eaten by other animals.

The American English H sound also blends in with its surroundings,

and that is one of the reasons it's so hard to hear, analyze, and understand.

When I say it blends in, I mean that it takes on the characteristics of the sounds before

and after it.

It doesn't go away, and it does still make its own distinct sound, but it manages to do it

while having the front of the vocal tract take the

shape of the surrounding vowels. First, what is the H sound? It's a fricative, meaning that the vocal

tract is constricted in some way, causing turbulence of air and sound. For the H sound, the constriction of air

happens deep in the throat. Because it's so deep, it's very hard to feel. In fact, if you can feel it,

you're probably overproducing it. Frickatives are continuous consonants, so I can hold the sound

for a long time. Holding the H sound sounds like this. When speaking, I don't ever have a need to hold the sound like that,

but it is good practice for learning where in the vocal tract the sound is coming from.

The H sound is unvoiced in American English, and it has no voiced counterpart.

This is unusual since all of the other English fricatives come in voiced, unvoiced pairs.

Now to learn what I mean when I say that the H sound is a chameleon sound.

Let's compare the H sound, in the words he and hot. I'll say those words, and I want you to repeat them.

He, hot. Were you able to get a nice, soft, unvoiced H sound?

Let's look at those words again.

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