# "h" en anglais et "r" en français



## 597476418

Bonjour,

Je pense que le "h" en anglais est presque identique au "r" en français, à ceci près que le "h" est prononcé moins fort, et vice versa. Mais j'ai remarqué que beaucoup de français ont du mal à prononcer le "h" en anglais.
D'ailleurs, la plupart des japonais n'arrivent pas à prononcer le "r" en français, et pourtant le "h" de l'anglais existe aussi en japonais.

Quelqu'un peut me dire pourquoi ?

Merci.


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## Nino83

597476418 said:


> Je pense que le "h" en anglais est presque identique au "r" en français


Je ne pense pas qu'ils soient similaires.
Écoute hawk (anglais) et rauque (français).
Le premier est un son sourd, [hɔːk], le deuxième est voisé, [ʁok].


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## CapnPrep

597476418 said:


> D'ailleurs, la plupart des japonais n'arrivent pas à prononcer le "r" en français, et pourtant le "h" de l'anglais existe aussi en japonais.


Ce qui prouve que les deux sons ne sont pas interchangeables…

Je pense que dans certains pays on apprend effectivement la substitution que vous suggérez, mais le résultat (/pahi/ pour _Paris_, /həgahde/ pour _regarder_) n'est vraiment pas satisfaisant.


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## Sobakus

Because even if we assume that these sounds do indeed sound nearly identical to a French speaker, since the [ɹ̠] and [ʁ] are definitely different pronunciations of the same phoneme to them, they would need to regard both /r/ and /h/ as the same phoneme. This would lead to the same phenomenon as /r/~/l/ confusion by Japanese speakers: /rere~hehe/ for _here_ and _rear_, /st.hate~state/ for _strait_, /rot~hot/ for _hot and rot_ and so on.


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## 597476418

CapnPrep said:


> Ce qui prouve que les deux sons ne sont pas interchangeables…
> 
> Je pense que dans certains pays on apprend effectivement la substitution que vous suggérez, mais le résultat (/pahi/ pour _Paris_, /həgahde/ pour _regarder_) n'est vraiment pas satisfaisant.



Effectivement, quand je parle français, j'essaye de prononcer fort le son /h/ pour obtenir un /r/, mais jamais personne ne m'a corrigé, ni mes professeurs, ni mes amis français.


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## Swatters

597476418 said:


> Effectivement, quand je parle français, j'essaye de prononcer fort le son /h/ pour obtenir un /r/, mais jamais personne ne m'a corrigé, ni mes professeurs, ni mes amis français.



/h/ vraiment, et pas le <h> du pinyin? C'est /x/ que j'entends souvent de la part des sinophones comme substitut pour /R/, ce qui sonne bien à mon oreille, alors que /h/ passe très mal (à moins qu'il soit palatalisé en [ç] devant /i/ comme en japonais, mais même là c'est limite). À noter cependant que mon /R/ est presque systématiquement sourd et fréquemment roulé, donc j'ai sûrement un ressenti différent de celui de quelqu'un avec [ʁ] et [ʁ̞] comme réalisations principales.


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## 597476418

Swatters said:


> /h/ vraiment, et pas le <h> du pinyin? C'est /x/ que j'entends souvent de la part des sinophones comme substitut pour /R/, ce qui sonne bien à mon oreille, alors que /h/ passe très mal (à moins qu'il soit palatalisé en [ç] devant /i/ comme en japonais, mais même là c'est limite). À noter cependant que mon /R/ est presque systématiquement sourd et fréquemment roulé, donc j'ai sûrement un ressenti différent de celui de quelqu'un avec [ʁ] et [ʁ̞] comme réalisations principales.



Peut-être tu as raison. Je n'ai jamais pu entendre la différence entre "h" de l'anglais, "h" du pinyin, "h" du japonais, "j" de l'espagnol et "r" du français. La raison pour laquelle mon "r" est acceptable est peut-être que le "h" du pinyin est différent de celui de l'anglais.


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## Nino83

The Japanese "h" is equal to the English one, hanasu, i.e .
The Cantonese "h" is equal to the English one, 河, i.e . 
The Mandarin "h" is equal to the Spanish "j", 河, i.e [x].


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> The Japanese "h" is equal to the English one, hanasu, i.e .
> The Cantonese "h" is equal to the English one, 河, i.e .
> The Mandarin "h" is equal to the Spanish "j", 河, i.e [x].



Calling the English h  is a very coarse simplification of things that may cause more confusion then cure. The realization of the English h depends much on the following sound. It is something like a devoiced version of that sound. In front of [æ] as in _hat_, e.g., it is more like an Arabic ﺡ [ħ] than an Arabic ﻩ  and in front of [j] as in _human _it is a [ç].


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> Calling the English h  is a very coarse simplification



Following the same principle we should write [qʰɑːɹ] for _car_ and [cʰjuːb] for _cube_.
It's clear that the English/Japanese  is more back than the Spanish/Mandarin (and German) [x], before the *same* vowel.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> It's clear that the English/Japanese  is more back than the Spanish/Mandarin (and German) [x], before the *same* vowel.



It doesn't look as if you'd got it. The English h is not a . It is not even defined by a point of production like e.g the Arabic . It's only tangible characterisation is that it is voiceless. The German [x] has a fixed point of production independent of what is following. That is completely different.


Nino83 said:


> Following the same principle we should write [qʰɑːɹ] for _car_ and [cʰjuːb] for _cube_.


Aspiration has nothing to do with it. The English h is a phonemic in its own right and not a property of another phoneme.


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## Swatters

Nino83 said:


> Following the same principle we should write [qʰɑːɹ] for _car_ and [cʰjuːb] for _cube_.



In a bracket transcription, why shouldn't we? (Not sure there are that many English accents where /k/ is uvular before /ɑ/ though)



Nino83 said:


> It's clear that the English/Japanese  is more back than the Spanish/Mandarin (and German) [x], before the *same* vowel.




That depends on the vowel. berndf spoke of the English /h/ already, and in Japanese, /h/ is realised as [ɸ] before /ɯ/ and as [ç] before /i/. Compare ojitos in Spanish with a post-velar /x/ and kohi in Japanese, with a palatal /h/, in the exact same vocalic environment.


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## Nino83

I was referring to the fact that also the English /k/ has no fixed point of articulation, [q], [k] and [c], depending on the following vowel.
Anyway people use [k] everywhere in transcriptions.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> I was referring to the fact that also the English /k/ has no fixed point of articulation, [q], [k] and [c], depending on the following vowel.
> Anyway we use [k] everywhere.


That is not true. The exact position of [k] may vary slightly. But neither does the /k/ in _car _have anything to [q] nor the /k/ in _cube _with [c]. The _h_ is _essentially _moving around. When other consonants move for half a mm or so this is not the same thing. It seems you are confusing a principle with a marginal effect here.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> The exact position of [k] may vary slightly.


I'm not sure it would sound nice to pronounce _car_ with the /k/ present in _cube_.
Anyway, I linked two words with a central vowel.
Compare hanasu (Japanese, where there is ) with 汉 (Mandarin, claudrainner, who lives in China has [x] but Deliah Zhang, who lives in the US, has an ).


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Compare hanasu (Japanese, where there is )



I hear [ħ].


Nino83 said:


> with 汉 (Mandarin, claudrainner, who lives in China has [x] but Deliah Zhang, who lives in the US, has an ).



I don't hear  in any of them. Both are somewhere in between [x] and [ħ].


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## fdb

berndf said:


> Calling the English h  is a very coarse simplification of things that may cause more confusion then cure. The realization of the English h depends much on the following sound. It is something like a devoiced version of that sound. In front of [æ] as in _hat_, e.g., it is more like an Arabic ﺡ [ħ] than an Arabic ﻩ  and in front of [j] as in _human _it is a [ç].




For me, the initial consonant of English ‘had’ sounds exactly like the initial consonant in Arabic hadd هد and not at all like that in ḥadd حد .


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## hadronic

berndf said:


> That is not true. The exact position of [k] may vary slightly. But neither does the /k/ in _car _have anything to [q] nor the /k/ in _cube _with [c]. The _h_ is _essentially _moving around. When other consonants move for half a mm or so this is not the same thing. It seems you are confusing a principle with a marginal effect here.



In my experience, /k/ moves around as much as /h/ does. In front of [ɑ] or [ł], /k/ moves back to a clear uvular [q], in most speakers. In the same way, in front of [j], /k/ strongly palatalizes to [c].



> It's only tangible characterisation is that it is voiceless.



This is not true. /h/ voices to [ɦ] in many intervocalic contexts, often in "have", "had", making it very close to Arabic هد,  as mentioned Fdb.

When not voiced, /h/ can sometimes draw back to [ħ] on front of very open vowels like front /a/, because opening the mouth that wide constricts the throat and somewhat pharyngalizes the /h/. But voiced /h/ never turns into a ع.

Finally, Japanese /h/ in font of /o/ and /a/ is nothing close to a [ħ]. It's more of a voiceless uvular approximant. It's hard to describe and I'm not aware of anf IPA sign for it, neither did I find any valuable article or research on that topic (when other allpphonies of Japanese are heavily studied), but it's close to [ꭓ] but without the grating sound, or close to a voiceless [ʁ]. 
Funnily enough, when I first studied Arabic, this was the sound I was using for ح since it matched the description (throaty, voiceless, "like a h",  sound when you blow air on a mirror etc..). Until I met my first Arabic speaker...


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## berndf

hadronic said:


> Funnily enough, when I first studied Arabic, this was the sound I was using for ح since it matched the description (*throaty, *voiceless, *"like a h"*, sound when you blow air on a mirror etc..).


I don't understand what you mean. [ħ] is *less *throaty than , not more.


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## berndf

fdb said:


> For me, the initial consonant of English ‘had’ sounds exactly like the initial consonant in Arabic hadd هد and not at all like that in ḥadd حد .


I find it very rare for an English speaker to pronounce a glottal fricative at all. What comes out, if they try, is much too high up in the throat to be called glottal (like the sound sample here) and than would be appropriate for a ه.


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## hadronic

berndf said:


> I don't understand what you mean. [ħ] is *less *throaty than , not more.




Throatiness is in the ear of the hearer  

 being a sound of English, English speakers would less readily consider it as "throaty", with the negative connotation it carries. [ħ] on the other hand, is I believe considered throatier than  through lack of exposure to that sound, regardless of the anatomical details. 

Personally, I don't consider that the deeper the sound the throatier. The throaty "apex" is around the pharynx, and the more you move away from it, either towards [k] or towards [ʔ], the less throaty it'll sound, while fricative will sound throatier than stops for the same place of articulation ( [x] throatier than [k], etc..)


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## berndf

hadronic said:


> Throatiness is in the ear of the hearer


The phonetic definition is quite clear. To say it again more clearly. What I am saying is that English /h/ almost never is .


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## hadronic

But is clearly never [ħ], not even a little. 
Maybe it's slightly epiglottal, but never pharyngal.

I'm using "throatiness" in its impressionistic sense (vs. General European), not in its anatomical or phonetical definition -  if ever.


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## hadronic

Your link above doesn't work, so I still don't get what sound you're referring to for English /h/.


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## berndf

hadronic said:


> But is clearly never [ħ], not even a little.


I disagree.


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## hadronic

berndf said:


> I disagree.



Allow me to rephrase myself. I did say above that /h/ can tends towards it in front of a front [æ] _and_ if it remains voiceless. But it's a somewhat narrow context. Most /h/ are regular glottal or epiglottal fricatives.

That was just for the clarity of my position. I agree with your disagreement.


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## berndf

hadronic said:


> Your link above doesn't work, so I still don't get what sound you're referring to for English /h/.


I have corrected the link. I am almost sure the sound sample is by an English speaker. This is even closer to [x] than to [ħ] but is certainly no . An Eh] nglish /h/ is so unspecific that it could be  but that would be more or less accidental. The Germanic /h/ is originally an allophone of [x], a weakened form used in the syllable onset, and this still shows. It shows e.g. in the fact that for speakers of Germanic languages it is next to impossible to pronounce  in the syllable coda like in أهرام (pyramids, broken plural of هرم).


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## berndf

hadronic said:


> Most /h/ are regular glottal or epiglottal fricatives.


Epiglottal (=[ħ]): yes, often. Glottal (=): rarely.


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## hadronic

That is more a phonotactics issue than a phonology issue. Hebrew possessed (in all likelihood) this sound too and also restricted it from coda / vowelless positions. 

I never knew where Wikipedia got those sound samples from. But it's the same voice doing all sorts of phonemes so I came to conclude they were computer generated. In any case, I hear a plain voiceless , nothing out of the ordinary.


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## hadronic

[QUTE="berndf, post: 15975517, member: 114202"]Epiglottal (=[ħ]) yes, often. Glottal (=): rarely.[/QUOTE]

Sorry for the confusion, I said epiglottal, but didn't intended to mean [ħ]. I call the latter pharyngeal. I should have said "raised glottal" (above glottal but not pharyngeal yet)


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## berndf

If it is raised to epiglottal it is not an  anymore, not if we take the Arabic phonemic contrast as a benchmark.


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## Ihsiin

As a native of both English and Arabic I have to say I have _never_ heard /h/ realised as [ħ]. If we're comparing with Arabic, I agree with fdb that "had" is much closer to هد than to حد. When we were children we used to say things like _ħappy_ and _perħaps_ as a way to poke fun at the accents of our elders. I don't think we would have thought this something to remark upon were [ħ] the expected realisation of English /h/ in these environments.


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## merquiades

597476418 said:


> Bonjour,
> 
> Je pense que le "h" en anglais est presque identique au "r" en français, à ceci près que le "h" est prononcé moins fort, et vice versa. Mais j'ai remarqué que beaucoup de français ont du mal à prononcer le "h" en anglais.
> D'ailleurs, la plupart des japonais n'arrivent pas à prononcer le "r" en français, et pourtant le "h" de l'anglais existe aussi en japonais.
> 
> Quelqu'un peut me dire pourquoi ?
> 
> Merci.


Bonjour @597476418 .  Je comprends pourquoi tu dois avoir cette impression.  On peut trouver des francophones qui prononcent un R très faible qui ressemble un peu à un H.  Mais en général les deux sons sont différents.  Tout d'abord le R français c'est un son voisé qui vient de la gorge.  C'est un son qui est plus comme un G prolongé qu'un H.  Par exemple, si tu mets ta main sur ta gorge lorsque tu prononces le R tu percevras des vibrations et une constriction de la gorge. Le H prononcé à l'anglaise (peut-être en chinois aussi??)  n'est qu'une aspiration prolongée.  Au toucher tu ne remarqueras pas de vibrations ni de constriction dans la gorge.


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## berndf

Ihsiin said:


> I agree with fdb that "had" is much closer to هد than to حد.


Are you sure this isn't because you as a dual native speaker have two distinct sets phonemic distinctions? Consider this realization (the second one, by fordum). In my experience it is not an untypical one. It is so raised, if I heard it in a German word I would have problems identifying it as an /h/ even though my language is lacking a phoneme between  and [x]. If I had to assign this sound to either /h/ or /x/ in German, I would choose [x].


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## fdb

I agree: fordum's version of "had" sounds as though it begins with an Arabic ح but I would be reluctant to regard this pronunciation as typical. fordum has what sounds to me like a very strong Australian regional accent.


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## berndf

I first noticed this realization of /h/ in front of /æ/ occurring regularly with American speakers. Finding it also in many other dialects convinced me it is not an Americanism. My impression is that it is somewhat less likely to occur in RP.


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## hadronic

In this forvo sample from an Arabic speaker
اسْتَهداه pronunciation: How to pronounce اسْتَهداه in Arabic,  you may also get the impression that he's saying ح instead of ه.
I see multiple reasons :
- recordings don't make justice between ح and voiceless ه, just like between /s/ and /f/.
- strong voiceless ه may resemble a ح, but ح is a whole other level of roughness/hoarseness. Until you hear the two sounds side by side, you may think voiceless ه is a ح.
- in forvo samples, people adopt a somewhat unnatural pronunciation and exaggerate features.
- ه is in a sukun / vowel-less position, which forces a stronger pronunciation.


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## berndf

hadronic said:


> but ح is a whole other level of roughness/hoarseness


That is what I am saying. The English /h/ is usually weakened to the point where it is not a fricative any more but unspecific heavy breathing with no specific point of production. And if it is produced as a fricative it can be various things but very seldom a .


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> That is what I am saying. The English /h/ is usually weakened to the point where it is not a fricative any more but unspecific heavy breathing


Now I agree. 
To me the symbol  is an approximant, this is why, probably, I countered  (approximant) with [x] (fricative). 
To me the Mandarin "h" is a fricative (like the Spanish and German [x]) while the Japanese "h" is an approximant (more similar to the English one).


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Now I agree.
> To me the symbol  is an approximant, this is why, probably, I countered  (approximant) with [x] (fricative).
> To me the Mandarin "h" is a fricative (like the Spanish and German [x]) while the Japanese "h" is an approximant (more similar to the English one).



The German /h/ could possibly be described as a glottal approximant. But for the English /h/ even that would be too much. It doesn't have a specific point of production at all, probably because it doesn't have to maintain a phonemic opposition to /x/.


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## merquiades

The way I pronounce /h/ at least the point of articulation changes according to the vowel sound that follows it.  So for _heat_ and _human_ it is quite forward in the mouth, but for _home_ and _house_ it is in the back of the mouth.  I don't notice anything peculiar about _had_ and _hat _unless we are talk about those speakers who diphthongize the vowel here.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> But for the English /h/ even that would be too much.


I agree that it's too much to say that it's glottal, but it's fair to say that it's approximant, am I right?  
I agree that the point of articulation changes (yes, more for "h" than for "k") in English.  
The greatest difference I perceive is that the English/Japanese "h" is softer than the Spanish/German [x] (which is a bit "harsher", stronger).  
It seems to me that the Cantonese "h" is softer (approximant) than the Mandarin one, but it is only how I perceive it (another person could have a different perception).


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> I perceive is that the English/Japanese "h" is softer than the Spanish/German [x] (which is a bit "harsher", stronger).


The German /x/ is indeed a fricative, if stressed even a trill.


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