The case of the silent letter H.
Unlike the other silent letters, the H can be found at the beginning or in the middle of
a word, as in heure malheur, trahison.
There are two categories.
The mute h and the aspirated h.
By itself, neither is pronounced, but the aspirated h prohibits elision.
Remember the rule where the final vowel is removed in front of another vowel, as in
humidité. Here, the h is silent, so elision is possible and the axe.
Here it is an aspirated h, so elision is forbidden.
So in itself, recognizing a mute h and an aspirated h is rather grammatically
interesting. We can therefore ask the question how to distinguish the aspirated h
from the mute h?
To find out if you are dealing with an aspirated H or a mute H, just look it up in a
dictionary. The aspirated h is preceded by a small sign called the asterisk.
Here are some examples.
haut huler ache.
You see that little star at the top.
That's called the asterisk.
And that's it, we're done with mute letters.
Join me in the following videos to start the liaisons.