Free knowledge like this doesn't just help, it promote demaorccy. Thank you. In the Romance lanuagges (Spanish, Italian, French all lanuagges that spun off of Latin, spoken in Rome, thus called Romance lanuagges) the J sound is not like jar or jump but more of a Y sound, like year . When I took 4 years of Spanish instruction, we learned that in some cases, the J has an H sound. I'm not sure how in modern English J came to sound exclusively like jar or jump .