へ

へ (pronounced "e" when used as a particle, not "he") marks the direction of motion — where the motion is headed. It overlaps heavily with に for destinations, and in modern conversational Japanese the two are often interchangeable: 学校へ行く ≈ 学校に行く.

The traditional textbook distinction: へ emphasizes the direction or trajectory ("toward X"), while に emphasizes the endpoint or arrival ("to X, at X"). In practice native speakers rarely feel a strong difference for the basic motion verbs, but へ tends to sound slightly more formal or literary, and is preferred in fixed expressions like ようこそ日本へ ("welcome to Japan").

A difference that does matter: only に can mark indirect objects and times — 友達に話す ("talk to a friend"), 七時に ("at seven") — へ cannot. So when in doubt for non-motion uses, default to に.