Yes, they sound the same. The only time the "h" has a pronunciation sound in Spanish is when it follows a "c," making the "ch" phoneme. Otherwise you can pretend it's not there. Answer from LadyGethzerion on reddit.com
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SpanishDictionary.com
spanishdict.com › spanishdictionary.com › grammar › language basics › how to pronounce the letter "h" in spanish
How to Pronounce the Letter "H" in Spanish | SpanishDictionary.com
The letter h is pronounced roughly like the English h of ham in only a few foreign words used in Spanish, such as hámster(hamster). The letter group chhas its own pronunciation in Spanish, which sounds just like the ch in the English word church.
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ThoughtCo
thoughtco.com › the-spanish-h-always-silent-3078235
How To Pronounce the Spanish H
April 19, 2019 - The letter h may be the easiest of all the Spanish letters to pronounce: With the only exceptions being a very few words of obvious foreign origin and the two-letter combinations explained next, the h is always silent.
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BaseLang
baselang.com › home › silent letters in spanish: the letter h, and sometimes u
Silent Letters in Spanish: The Letter H, and sometimes U
January 14, 2025 - We’ll start with the letter H in Spanish, including a section on exceptions where the H is indeed pronounced. Then we’ll look at lists of gue, gui, que, and qui words, again with an exception to the silent rule when we see them as güe and güi. For further study, we can recommend our post on how to approach pronunciation in Spanish, as well as our in-depth lesson on syllables in Spanish.
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SpanishDictionary.com
spanishdict.com › spanishdictionary.com › grammar › miscellaneous › "h" is silent in spanish
"H" Is Silent in Spanish | SpanishDictionary.com
Much to the chagrin of folks named Henry, Heather, Hubert, or Helen, the letter h typically isn’t pronounced in Spanish. Before we fully delve into the pronunciation of the letter h, let's go back in historia(history), shall we? According to the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas(Panhispanic Dictionary of Doubts), the letter h was pronounced until the 16th century.
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Tell Me In Spanish
tellmeinspanish.com › home › blog › learning › h in spanish: pronunciation & spelling tips + vocabulary
H in Spanish: Pronunciation & Spelling Tips + Vocabulary | Tell Me In Spanish
January 28, 2025 - Click on this guide to learn how to pronounce the letter h in Spanish. Recordings, examples, and list of words with h included.
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Lawless Spanish
lawlessspanish.com › lawless spanish › pronunciation guides
H - Spanish Silent Letter - Lawless Spanish Pronunciation
May 31, 2023 - The Spanish letter H is silent. When you see an H, pronounce the word as if it weren't there.
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StudySmarter
studysmarter.co.uk › h sound in spanish
H Sound in Spanish: Pronunciation, Rules | StudySmarter
Understanding the pronunciation of the "H" sound in Spanish is crucial for learners, as it's notably silent, diverging from its use in English. This distinct characteristic enhances comprehension and fluency in conversational Spanish. By recognising that the "H" is mute, students can significantly improve their accent and increase their speaking confidence.
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Top answer
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Word-initial [h-] in Spanish was gradually lost in most peninsular dialects by the late Middle Ages, but this sound change was not universal, and this sound is still present in colloquial Andalusian, Extremaduran, and Canarian dialects today:4 5 6

The loss of [h-] did not spread everywhere, of course, since it was a relatively late innovation. Nebrija, for example, at the end of the fifteenth century, described [h] as a regular part of the phonemic inventory of Spanish. Today [h-] is still found in popular speech in Extremadura, Huelva, Sevilla, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga and the western portions of Granada and Almeria (Penny 1972-3, 470), as well as in many parts of Spanish America.

  • From Latin to Spanish: Historical phonology and morphology of the Spanish language (p.325)

As well as in various cosmopolitan dialects descended from colonisers from the above regions (e.g. Mexico1, the Philippines2, Equatorial Guinea3).

This aspiration has even lead its way into the orthography of some regionalisms, replacing "h-" with "j-":

Esta aspiración aún se conserva como rasgo dialectal en Andalucía, Extremadura, Canarias y otras zonas de España y América. A veces, la aspiración llega casi a convertirse en el sonido velar fricativo sordo /j/, pronunciación que en algún caso tiene reflejo en la escritura; así ha ocurrido, por ejemplo, con el adjetivo jondo (‘hondo’, del lat. fundus), que se aplica al cante más genuinamente andaluz, caracterizado por su profundo sentimiento, o con el verbo jalar, variante de halar usada en varios países americanos, o con jolgorio, grafía hoy mayoritaria frente a la etimológica holgorio.

  • DPD: h (2.)

1. A Panorama of Traditional New Mexican Spanish (p.8-9)
2. A History of the Spanish Language (1.5.4 The Philippines)
3. "Cuba Africana" (1858-1898), transferencias lingüísticas afrocubanas (p.46)

4. Variation and Change in Spanish (4.1.7.2.3 Maintanence and loss of /h/, p.121-122)
5. Andalusian Spanish (2.3 Retention of [h] < Latin f)
6. DPD: h (2.)

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You should consider two points about the 'silent sound' of the letter "h":

  1. En las palabras que contienen los diptongos /ua/, /ue/, /ui/ en posición inicial o en posición interior a comienzo de sílaba, y que se escriben con h antepuesta (hua-, hue-, hui-), se suele pronunciar ante el diptongo un leve sonido consonántico cercano a una /g/: [guéso, guébo, pariguéla, desguesár] por hueso, huevo, parihuela, deshuesar. (...) así, algunas palabras que comienzan por hua-, hue- o hui- pueden escribirse también con gua-, güe- y güi-, como huaca, huemul o huipil, escritas también guaca, güemul, güipil.

  2. El grupo hi en posición inicial de palabra seguido de una e tónica se pronuncia normalmente como el sonido palatal sonoro /y/ (→ y1, 2a), salvo detrás de pausa o de palabra que termina en vocal, en que la pronunciación oscila entre [ié] y [yé]; así, es normal que palabras como hierro, hielo, hierba, hiedra se pronuncien [yérro, yélo, yérba, yédra]. También esta pronunciación se ha fijado en algún caso en la escritura, como ha ocurrido en hiedra y hierba, y en algunos derivados de esta última, que pueden escribirse también yedra, yerba, yerbajo, etc. En el Río de la Plata, las formas hierba y yerba no son simples variantes gráficas, sino que denotan cosas distintas: mientras que hierba designa cualquier planta pequeña de tallo tierno, yerba designa solo la que se emplea para preparar el mate.

At least in America this is the common way.

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Open Learning
open.edu › openlearn › mod › oucontent › view.php
Getting started with Spanish 1: Week 1: 4 Pronunciation of the letter ‘h’ | OpenLearn - Open University
You can also record yourself and listen back to your pronunciation. hola Horacio historia hotel hospital Helena Honduras alcohol End transcript ... Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view). Notice that the ‘h’ isn’t sounded at all in Spanish, whether it’s at the beginning or in the middle of a word.
Top answer
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The H in hacienda (or really anywhere else1) is not pronounced at all. It's a silent letter.

The X used to have a sound similar to the SH in English and the J had a sound similar to English's J (if you're familiar with the sound often written as ZH, that's it). Over time, the sounds represented by the X and the J, which were fairly close, merged into a single sound that evolved into something that sounds quite like the English H.

Because many Xs now sounded the same as Js, most words that had an X were changed to J (those Xs that sounded like English's X kept their X as a rule).

So why does X get used for the H sound today? Many places in Mexico got their name before the sound change happened (and in Nahuatl, for instance, you pronounce the name of the Mexica tribe as meh-shee-kah). After the sound change, you'd think the spelling of places like Mexico or Oaxaca should also get a J. They did for a long time, actually, and Méjico is considered a valid spelling. Nonetheless, people get used to writing names a particular way, and don't tend to like to change them (sort of like how we write New York not New Yoick and New Orleans not Nawlins), and so the spelling with X was always used in Mexico itself, and today is the preferred spelling.

As a result, the letters X, J (and a G followed by E or I) will all sound like English's H.

Additionally, although not common for Mexican Spanish, you will notice that the S will often be pronounced like English's H. This generally happens when the S is at the end of a syllable, though not always.


1. In some imported words like hámster you will hear it aspirated, and in certain words in an extremely limited regions in Spain you can hear the h pronounced today, such that albahaca has an audible H.

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Quora
quora.com › Do-Spanish-people-pronounce-the-letter-H
Do Spanish people pronounce the letter “H”? - Quora
Answer (1 of 5): is silent in Spanish, as in most Romance languages. forms digraphs, or two letters making one sound, in a couple instances: chorro, ocho etc pronounced as in English hueco, cacahuate, etc pronounced like English hierro, hielo, etc pronounced like En...
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SpanishDictionary.com
spanishdict.com › spanishdictionary.com › grammar › language basics › how to pronounce "h" and "ch" in spanish
How to Pronounce "H" and "Ch" in Spanish | SpanishDictionary.com
The letter h may be pronounced roughly like the English h of ham in only a few foreign words used in Spanish, such as hámster(hamster). The letter group chhas its own pronunciation in Spanish, which sounds just like the ch in the English word ...
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Simple Book Publishing
uw.pressbooks.pub › jorgestextbook › chapter › the-ghost-consonant-the-h-or-hache
3.5 The Ghost Consonant “H” or “hache” – I'm All Ears
So if the “h” is silent, why do we write it? Well… for several reasons. First, it represents an “f” that existed in Latin and was lost as Spanish evolved: filius>hijo; facere>hacer; formica>hormiga. Second, it was inherited from Latin where it was apparently pronounced: hora>hora; historia>historia.
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StudySpanish
studyspanish.com › pronunciation › listen-and-repeat › letter_h
» Consonant: “H”
Like the “h” in the English word “hour,” the Spanish “h” is always silent.
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SpanishToMind
spanishtomind.com › home › blog › how to pronounce the h in spanish
How to pronounce the h in Spanish - SpanishToMind
June 10, 2021 - How could I help more English speaking students to learn to use the “h”in Spanish? That’s when I realized that I needed to write about this topic: During this blog post, I’ll be talking about how to use the“h”in Spanish as well as some examples for you to practice at home.
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Quora
quora.com › How-do-you-pronounce-h-in-Spanish-or-Portuguese
How to pronounce 'h' in Spanish or Portuguese - Quora
Answer (1 of 2): If not part of a digraph (see further down), “h” may only appear as the first letter of a word and it has no phonetic value (it is silent): it is there purely for etymological reasons.
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HowToPronounce.com
howtopronounce.com › spanish › h
H pronunciation in Spanish
March 31, 2020 - How to say h in Spanish? Pronunciation of h with 2 audio pronunciations, 2 synonyms, 2 translations, 5 sentences and more for h.