© Paul Smit 2006-2020
This is a common minimal pair in many parts of China, including Hubei, Hunan, and Fujian. As the two sounds exist in Mandarin, this is not commonly a problem for speakers of standard Mandarin.
Both /f/ and /h/ are unvoiced. This means that the sound is not produced in the vocal cords. To produce the /f/ sound, touch your lower lip with your upper teeth and blow air out. To produce the /h/ sound open the mouth, close your throat and blow air out.
Exercise 1: Contrasting the sounds
- Listen to the word pairs, focusing on the two different sounds.
- Then repeat, again focusing on saying the different sounds for /f/ and /h/
| /f/ | /h/ | |
| feet | heat | |
| found | hound | |
| funny | honey | |
| fell | hell | |
| fold | hold | |
| fairy | hairy | |
| feel | heel | |
| be fined | behind | |
| five | hive | |
| fed | head | |
| fear | hear | |
| fat | hat | |
| farm | harm | |
| fair | hair |
Exercise 2: Listening and distinguishing the sounds
This will help you learn to distinguish the two sounds.
- Listen to the recording.
- Choose the word you hear.
- You can listen as many times as you want.
- Click the blue > arrow on the bottom right to move to the next question.
Tongue twister
- Repeat the following tongue twister.
- Focus on the two different sounds /f/ as in funny and /h/ as in honey.
- Repeat again, trying to say the tongue twister faster and faster.
The funny hound in the fat hat found a hairy fairy eating funny honey behind five hives in a field.
“Don’t be found in the field,” said the funny hound.
“If you’re found,” said the hound, “you’ll be fined.“
© Paul Smit 2006-2020