.htaccess trouble

I have this site I'm making, and the way I've taught myself to write pages the urls look like this.
domain.com/home.php?user=user

However the client I'm making the site for wants them to look like...
domain.com/user/home
domain.com/user/payments
domain.com/user/settings
etc..

I know this is done by using the .htaccess file however, I'm not sure how it's done.

Can anyone help?