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Letter H

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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