Are you a thinker? Do you like singing? Do you ever ring the wrong number?
Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to answer these questions, they are just here to show examples of words that contain the sound / ŋ /. Here they are in phonetic symbols:
As you can see, the / ŋ / symbol represents either the two alphabet letters ‘ng’ together or it appears when the letter ‘n’ is followed by the letter 'k'. It’s harder to hear / ŋ / before the / k / sound, but if you listen carefully, it is there.
The sound / ŋ / can only be found in the middle or the end of an English word, not the beginning. It’s made by pressing the back of your tongue to the back of your mouth and then releasing it. It is also a nasal sound like / m / and / n /.
As / ŋ / happens inside your mouth, you can't see at all how it's pronounced. If you don't quite know how to make this sound already, I would suggest watching videos on a website such as YouTube or even look for diagrams which can also sometimes help. Here is one of those videos from the BBC Learning English series:
English Pronunciation –Consonant - /ŋ/ - 'rung', 'anger' and 'thanks' - YouTube
Does this sound exist in your first language? Is it easy or difficult for you to pronounce? I’d love to hear from you!
My next blog is the final one in this phonetics series! We’ll be looking at the phonetic symbol and sound / j / - obvious to some, but not to others...
In the meantime, if you’d like more information about listening to, watching and practising phonetic symbols and their corresponding sounds, please click here.
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