How to pronounce The /h/ as in HAT /h/ in American English

It's a natural shortcut in casual American speech called pronoun reduction. When common pronouns like he, him, his, or her show up unstressed in the middle of a sentence, the /h/ usually vanishes. So a phrase like tell him I said hi actually comes out as tell-im I said hi. This is exactly how Americans talk in real life, not lazy speech. If you pronounce every single H in a fast conversation, you can end up sounding overly formal or slightly robotic.

You're likely adding friction in your throat or mouth, tightening or scraping where the air should flow freely. The American /h/ is completely smooth. It's just a clean, gentle puff of air, exactly like sighing or fogging up a mirror. Your tongue and throat shouldn't tighten, scrape, or block the airflow at all. To fix it, relax your throat, open your mouth for the upcoming vowel, and just exhale silently before turning your voice on.

In modern American English, almost never. Words like what, where, when, and why are pronounced with a simple /w/ sound, making which and witch sound completely identical. Decades ago, many speakers used a breathy HW sound for these words, and you'll still hear it occasionally in older films or specific regional dialects. But for standard, everyday conversation today, you can safely ignore the H entirely and just start directly with a clean W, except for words like who, whose, and whole, which start with an /h/ and have a silent W.