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I heard today in my Japanese class my sensei pronouncing ひと the "ひ" like し my
teacher is not from a Japanese origin he studied there. I want to know is this
pronunciation right? Should I pronounce every ひ as し? Or ひと is the only case?
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2014-02-13T19:46:08.867
14477
2016-08-15T01:32:26.760
2016-08-15T01:32:26.760
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question
pronunciation
pronunciation of ひと
Neither, really. Merging し and ひ happens in certain dialects, and your teacher
probably studied somewhere where that merger is common. You can choose to do
it this way, or you can choose to not.

(It has nothing to do with the individual word ひと, though. Some people might
merge し and ひ in some places and not others, and before a /t/ might be one of
those places, but it's not a single-word phenomenon.)
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2014-02-13T19:49:49.847
14478
2014-02-13T19:49:49.847
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answer
The **「ひ」** in 「ひと」 is usually pronounced as kind of a silent huff of air.

Similar to how **「し」** is pronounced as a silent sound in 「している」 (like saying
"sh-teiru).

Or how **「つ」** is a silent sound in a word like 「みつけた」. (like saying the 'ts'
sound without sounding out the 'u' in 'tsu').

But pronouncing these as 'silent sounds' is only for certain words. There are
definitely plenty of other vocabulary where these are fully sounded out.

I hope that helps somewhat! ***^_^***
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2014-02-14T14:55:02.813
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2014-02-14T14:55:02.813
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answer