IPA reference · consonant
ħ — voiceless pharyngeal fricative
Friction created by constricting the pharynx — the throat itself narrows.
How to make the voiceless pharyngeal fricative
Breathe out hard while squeezing the throat, as if fogging a window from deep in the neck rather than from the mouth. There is no tongue or lip involvement.
This sound does not occur in standard English. That means there is no word you can say to find it by accident; you have to build it from the articulatory instruction above and check it against a recording.
Languages that use it
| Language | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic | حب | love |
Sounds it gets confused with
Most pronunciation errors are not random — they are a substitution of the nearest sound the speaker already owns. These are the usual substitutions for ħ, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
The universal learner substitution — far too weak and made at the glottis instead of the pharynx.
Also substituted, but /x/ is oral and /ħ/ is pharyngeal.
What this means for learners
Along with ع, this is one of the two sounds that most strongly mark an Arabic accent as native or not. Expect it to take weeks, not days.
Teaching this sound
Describing a sound in words gets a student roughly half the way there. The other half is hearing it produced correctly, immediately after producing it incorrectly, with both versions available to replay. That is the argument for recording during the lesson rather than after it: the student leaves with your model of ħ attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol ħ make?
ħ is the voiceless pharyngeal fricative. Friction created by constricting the pharynx — the throat itself narrows. It does not occur in standard English.
How do you pronounce ħ?
Breathe out hard while squeezing the throat, as if fogging a window from deep in the neck rather than from the mouth. There is no tongue or lip involvement.
Which languages have the voiceless pharyngeal fricative?
Among the languages covered here: Arabic (حب, “love”).
What is the difference between ħ and h?
The universal learner substitution — far too weak and made at the glottis instead of the pharynx.