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

My name is Mandy, and this is our 84th episode.

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Today's topic is the pronunciation of the W.H. spelling, as in the words, why, what, and when.

I've been asked a number of times if the H sound needs to be present in the pronunciation

of the W-H spelling.

Is the word what, W-H-A-T, pronounced as what or what?

The short and simple answer is to pronounce the word as what, with no H sound.

However, this is not a universal American pronunciation.

Some dialects of American English, spoken in the southeastern part of the United States, do say what, but that pronunciation is significantly less common.

There is also the little issue of when the W.H spelling is pronounced as an H sound, as in the words who and whole W-H-O-L-E.

Most of you are already aware of these words, but I wanted to mention their pronunciation

just in case some of you are trying to sneak a W sound into these words.

When the W-H is followed by either the long O sound or the O-O sound,

then the word is usually pronounced with an H sound and only an H sound.

This includes the words words who, whom, whose, and whole. You should notice that the words

whole, W-H-O-L-E, and whole H-O-L-E are pronounced exactly the same.

Most W-H words, except those followed by the long O or O-O sound, have lost the H portion of their

pronunciation in English.

Listen to the following words. What, when, why, which, whale, wheel,

white. It didn't used to be this way. The words wine, W-I-N-E and

...