"हम महँगा खाना नहीं खाते।"
Translation:We do not eat expensive food.
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My hindi teacher explained that if there is "ha" letter in the word, it makes all "a" sounds around it to be "e". And that's a rule. Hope my explanation makes sense.
You(he) are right. It is explained in some comment/tip in Duo. It also occurs in the words बहन (which is spoken 'behen' and not 'bahan'), यह (which is spoken 'ye' not 'yah') and वह (which is spoken 'vo' not 'vah')
I don't think that's always true, like in हर and पहेली. I think it's only in words with the sequence "aha". Hopefully a Hindi speaker can confirm.
In most cases where this change in pronunciation occurs, the ह is the second of the two consonants, as in कह("keh") or यह("yeh"), or middle of three consonants, as in बहन("behen") or महल("mehel"), and has no vowel marker attached to it. Above you mentioned the word पहेला. In this instance, the pronunciation both changes and doesn't change depending on the situation. In a formal setting, it will likely be pronounced "pahelaa" whereas in a colloquial setting, it will likely be pronounced as "pehlaa."
The word they mentioned was पहेली (riddle) which is pronounced like it's written. You are talking about पहला (first) which is pronounced pehla or pehela (though the 'e' here is shorter than the usual Hindi 'e' े)
It says something like महना for महँगा, the audio doesn't sound right to me, but it might be an exception I am not aware of as well
The audio is incorrect. I don't know if my Romanization will be of any help but this sounds more like "mehunga" (wrong!) instead of "mehenga" (right). Remember that 'महंगा' has a bindu (dot) called an अनुस्वार (anusvar) over the ह, making it a more nasal sound.
In negative sentences (sentences with नहीं), the है is optional as long as there will be a verb remaining in the sentence even after you drop it.