Last updated on January 1, 2019
When /h/ appears at the end of a syllable in Indonesian it is very lightly, but audibly, breathed.
rumah
putih
teh
sekolah
lebih
setengah
murah
kuliah
The /h/ sound is, in fact, always breathed at the end of any syllable, even when that syllable is in the middle of a word and is followed by a consonant.
Practise saying the words below, breathing the /h/ sound. (In the pronunciation help here, the /h/ is reduplicated and underlined to help you remember to breathe it.)
majalahnya
membersihkan
sesudahnya
When /h/ appears between two vowels it can be clearly audible or scarcely audible at all, depending on the vowels that flank it.
When /h/ occurs between two vowels that are the same it is breathed and is clearly audible. Practise audibly breathing the /h/ in these words.
mahal
bahasa
pohon
mahasiswa
Pak Luhur
Bu Solihin
But, if the /h/ occurs between two vowels that are different it is scarcely audible, in fact in the speech of many Indonesians, especially Javanese, it almost disappears altogether. Practise saying these words with a very light, almost non-existent, /h/ sound.
tahu
lahir
tahun
Suharti
latihan
melihat
the /h/ at the beginning of a syllable disappears, or is very weak. So you hear:
hari
hijau
harus
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