This study presents a cross-language investigation of the acoustic quality of the /h/-part in the Japanese /hi/syllable, and/h/before /if in German and the German palatal fricative [q]. Two comparisons of the acoustic structure of specific effects within and between the two languages are shown, one of them dealing with the elicitation of absolute values these sounds may have in common, similar to loci found for stops, the other one focusing on tendencies rather than absolute values. In the latter comparison, the acoustic structure of the two German sounds are related to these realisations of the Japanese /hi/syllable, where the vowel is phonetically maintained and where it is not.