'E 'as an 'ard 'at on 'is 'ed... dropping /h/ in English

Welcome back to season 4 of English Sound Building! Following on from last week's episode all about /h/, this week we're discussing when /h/ is dropped - both by most speakers, in the weak forms of grammar words, and by some speakers, much more often, in some regional English accents.
 
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Transcript

So, today we’re continuing from last week’s session, in which we talked about the /h/ sound. Last week, we talked about the so-called standard English-from-England pronunciation of /h/, where the sound is pronounced almost all of the times we see it in writing. However, what’s interesting is that the majority of English speakers from England will actually drop – or elide- the /h/ sound at least some of the time. This can happen in two ways:

The first way, is that nearly all speakers will sometimes drop the ‘h’ in faster speech at the beginning of weak forms of grammar words, and particularly where these grammar words are in the middle or at the end of a sentence, so we’re talking about: he, him, his, her, has, have, had, but of course the weak forms. As with many features of connected speech, it isn’t done consistently, but dropping the ‘h’s – along with other features of connected speech - can help you get a better feel for the rhythm of English, so it is something I’d advise experimenting with. You may find it’s something you already do sometimes - do remember that no speaker will do this consistently, though. 

Firstly, let’s just refresh our memory of these weak forms by reading them as individual words. We spoke about this when we looked at reducing weak forms to the schwa sound in Episode 26, but at that point we didn’t drop the /h/.

Let’s read them both ways:

he 

him

his

her

has 

have

had

And now let’s practise these weak forms in some common sentences. First, I’ll read the sentence slowly, without weak forms and with /h/ sounds for you to grasp the meaning. I’ll then read it again, slowly, without weak forms and with /h/ sounds. This time, I’d like you to repeat, but don’t try to copy me: say it as you naturally would, noticing whether or not you produce those /h/ sounds (or weak forms). 

1.     Yes, he said he’s coming.

2.     Could you tell him I’m here?

3.     I told her I’d call!

4.     I met his mum yesterday.

5.     I haven’t seen him today.

6.     Well, he should have (should’ve) known better. 

7.     I think he has (he’s) just left the office.

8.     I had (I’d) better go now.

In fact, as you’ll see from the sentences, the contracting of many of these with an apostrophe in informal writing is a great clue here, and because you’ll be used to seeing these written contractions, you’ll find that you’re already dropping the /h/ in some places without knowing it. 

Ok, we’re now going to go through the same sentences again, with me reading them at my natural pace, producing the weak forms and dropping the /h/s. This time, try to repeat in the same way as I do. Do you notice a difference from the previous time?

1.     Yes, he said he’s coming.

2.     Could you tell him I’m here?

3.     I told her I’d call!

4.     I met his mum yesterday.

5.     I haven’t seen him today.

6.     Well, he should have (should’ve) known better. 

7.     I think he has (he’s) just left the office.

8.     I had (I’d) better go now.

We’ve seen these weak forms with a dropped /h/ sound before in some of the tongue twisters and rhymes we’ve looked at. Do you remember this Carolyn Wells classic? Listen and repeat, line by line at first. I’ll read each line twice: the first time, I’ll 

“A canner exceedingly canny, 

One morning remarked to his granny

A canner can can anything that he can

But a canner can’t can a can, can he?

At the beginning I said there’s a second way of dropping ‘h’s, which is to drop the /h/ much more often. This is characteristic of many English-from-England accents. In fact, if you look at a map of accents and /h/ in England, you’ll see that the majority of the map is taken up with places which drop, rather than pronounce, the /h/. The pronunciation of the /h/ is still seen as standard, however, so I wouldn’t encourage you to drop these /h/ sounds unless you want to. However, this is yet another place where learning about pronunciation will really help your listening, because if you’re listening to English-from-England speakers, you have to learn to map: “what’s ’appening?” and “what’s happening?”, “’ow is ’e?” and “how is he?" or “’e ’as an ’ard ’at on ’is ’ead’ to “he has a hard hat on his head” to the same meanings. See if you notice any ‘h’ dropping in any of the English you listen to this week.

Well done! Unless you’re used to hearing the accents where the /h/ sounds are dropped a lot, it can be really tricky to wrap your head around dropping them, especially if you’ve previously worked really hard to make sure you’re pronouncing the /h/ in that word initial position. But, I hope you found it fun to play with! My students often find it really interesting to notice how the feel of their English changes when they start dropping these /h/ forms at the beginnings of words.