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
Many of these h words come from Latin words that were already written with an h or are derived from other languages, such as Greek. For example, the word hoy(today) derives from the Latin hodie. The fact that h is silent in Spanish makes it hard to predict when a word is written with or without it.
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SpanishDictionary.com
spanishdict.com › spanishdictionary.com › grammar › language basics › spanish alphabet pronunciation
Spanish Grammar Articles and Lessons | SpanishDictionary.com
Learning how to pronounce the Spanish alphabet, or abecedario, is easy! Most letters only have one sound, which makes pronouncing them pretty simple. The table below shows the letters in the abecedario, along with their Spanish name(s), and some tips on pronouncing them alone and in combination with other letters.
Discussions

pronunciación - Why do so many letters in Spanish get pronounced like the English 'h'? - Spanish Language Stack Exchange
So is the 'j' in "Guadalajara". I think there is at least one other letter that gets pronounced as an 'h' too but I can't think of it at this moment. Are these pronunciations universal among Spanish speakers or are they just common among, say, Mexicans or Cubans? More on spanish.stackexchange.com
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June 7, 2019
diferencias regionales - Do any dialects of Spanish still pronounce "h"? - Spanish Language Stack Exchange
When he says hablar, it drives me nuts. :-) TIA. T.J. Crowder – T.J. Crowder · 2020-04-21 08:31:53 +00:00 Commented Apr 21, 2020 at 8:31 ... @T.J.Crowder yeah - it's a rare phenomenon in modern Spanish - globally the vast majority of speakers do not pronounce it, and in the dialects where it is pronounced it's stigmatised somewhat, I wouldn't recommend people learning Spanish emulate this - it would be something akin to ... More on spanish.stackexchange.com
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January 16, 2020
How do you say this in Spanish (Spain)? h
@hadykshtgr6 The letter h is called ... the h in spanish is not pronounced ... Your feedback will not be shown to other users. ... Do you know how to improve your language skills❓ All you have to do is have your writing corrected by a native speaker! With HiNative, you can have your writing corrected by both native speakers and AI 📝✨. ... How do you say this in Spanish ... More on hinative.com
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March 10, 2020
Is the h completely silent in Spanish?
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. More on reddit.com
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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 - Notice that, in the previous words, the h doesn’t produce a sound; we just pronounce the vowels preceding it. Although the h in Spanish is typically silent, it’s still used for spelling purposes and, in some cases, to distinguish one word from another.
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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 - This means that because many Spanish words are of Latin or Greek origin, they are written with an H. In the spoken language of today, however, the Spanish H normally has no vocalized sound associated with its pronunciation. We say that the Spanish H is silent, but this is only partially true.
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Quora
quora.com › What-is-the-difference-between-J-and-H-in-Spanish-Is-J-ever-pronounced-as-anything-other-than-h
What is the difference between J and H in Spanish? Is J ever pronounced as anything other than 'h'? - Quora
Hola (Hello in Spanish) is pronounced “O-lah”. The J is not pronounced exactly like an English H, even though we English-speakers often get lazy and pronounce it too much like an H. The correct sound of the J (=jota) ...
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International House Madrid
ihmadrid.com › ih madrid › learn spanish in madrid › how to pronounce spanish words? pronunciation and rules of the spanish alphabet
Spanish pronunciation: spanish alphabet pronunciation - IHMadrid
October 9, 2024 - Master Spanish pronunciation with ease! Learn essential rules for the alphabet, accent, vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation. Speak fluently and confidently!
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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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Spanish411
spanish411.net › Spanish-Alphabet.asp
The Spanish Alphabet - Spanish411
Today’s lesson is brought to you by the letter “che.” · Ask any second-grader how many letters there are in the alphabet and they’ll tell you there are 26 and maybe even sing you a song:
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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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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 ... it is there purely for etymological reasons. Examples: “hora” (hour), “humano” (human), “hotel”, “hospital” — they would be read exactly th......
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ThoughtCo
thoughtco.com › the-spanish-h-always-silent-3078235
How To Pronounce the Spanish H
April 19, 2019 - The 'h' is pronounced in some borrowed words like 'hámster' and other foreign terms like 'hockey'. 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 ...
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YouTube
youtube.com › watch
The letter 'H' in Spanish - YouTube
I will teach you all about the letter "H" in Spanish. Most English speakers pronounce the letter H when they are speaking Spanish because they forget that t...
Published   January 16, 2016
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Gritty Spanish
grittyspanish.com › home › how to pronounce the letter “h” in spanish | examples + audio included
How to Pronounce the Letter "H" in Spanish | Examples + Audio Included
May 13, 2024 - or should I say, its silence? 🤫 · First off, here’s the shocker: The letter “H” in Spanish is silent! Yes, you read that right.
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Duolingo Blog
blog.duolingo.com › spanish-alphabet-pronunciation
Spanish Alphabet Guide: The Letters and How to Pronounce Them
October 2, 2025 - Learn the names and pronunciation of the 27 letters of the Spanish alphabet, including how to spell words and use accent marks.
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › H
H - Wikipedia
2 days ago - In 1901, a spelling reform eliminated ... after the last German spelling reform. In Spanish and Portuguese, ⟨h⟩ is a silent letter with no pronunciation, as in hijo [ˈixo] ('son') and húngaro [ˈũɡaɾu] ('Hungaria...
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Quora
quora.com › If-a-j-is-pronounced-like-a-h-in-Spanish-what-letter-is-similar-in-pronunciation-to-an-American-j-And-what-does-h-sound-like-in-Spanish
If a 'j' is pronounced like a 'h' in Spanish, what letter is similar in pronunciation to an American 'j'? And what does 'h' sound like in Spanish? - Quora
Answer (1 of 11): If a 'j' is pronounced like a 'h' in Spanish, what letter is similar in pronunciation to an American 'j'? And what does 'h' sound like in Spanish? First of all, Spanish “j” does not really sound like English H. If you pronounced the word “jamás” (never) as “ham-ass”, you would ...
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HiNative
hinative.com › how do you say this in ...
How do you say "h" in Spanish (Spain)? | HiNative
March 10, 2020 - @hadykshtgr6 The letter h is called "ache" but if you ask about the pronunciation, the h in spanish is not pronounced ... Your feedback will not be shown to other users. ... Do you know how to improve your language skills❓ All you have to do is have your writing corrected by a native speaker! With HiNative, you can have your writing corrected by both native speakers and AI 📝✨. ... How do you say this in Spanish (Spain)?
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Real Fast Spanish
realfastspanish.com › home › pronunciation › silent letters in spanish – a short but important list
Silent Letters in Spanish: These are The Only Two You Need to Know
July 30, 2023 - If you look it up, Huevos Rancheros is commonly misspelled as “Juevos Rancheros” (and huevos as juevos), as apparently this silent /h/ situation isn’t always explained to Spanish learners (I would say this is probably a US school system flaw, as that’s where we are).