Consonant Sound / ŋ / (NG) as in "thing"- American English Pronunciation
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- Learn how to pronounce the consonant sound /ŋ/ used in words like "going," "long," or "bring."
Improve your American accent with four phonetic exercises recorded by a professional speech therapist.
Liked the video? You'll love our website: soundsamerican.net/
Quick links:
• Consonant sound /ŋ/, as in "thing:" 00:00
• How to recognize the /ŋ/ in words: 01:00
• The consonant sound /ŋ/ cheat sheet: 02:25
• How to make the consonant sound /ŋ/: 02:43
• Typical mistakes in pronunciation of the /ŋ/: 03:38
• Pronunciation exercise 1: 05:48
• Pronunciation exercise 2: 07:49
• Pronunciation exercise 3: 09:03
• Pronunciation exercise 4: 10:16
Related videos:
#AmericanPronunciation #ConsonantSounds #NasalSounds
► Consonant Sound /n / as in "nice:" goo.gl/5rDFpN
► Thin or Thing? Sin or Sing? goo.gl/CiYt41
► Consonant sounds (playlist): goo.gl/fYE3xe
[ThIS VIDEO HAS ENGLISH, SPANISH, JAPANESE, CHINESE, VIETNAMESE, AND PORTUGUESE SUBTITLES]
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TRANSCRIPT
Hello there! This is the "Sounds American" channel.
In this video, we're going to talk about the American consonant sound /ŋ/, as in the word "thing." You can also hear this sound in words like "sing," "long," "bank" or "uncle."
We'll be using a special phonetic symbol - /ŋ/ - for this sound.
Many non-native English speakers don't realize they have difficulty with the /ŋ/ sound. However, this sound is often distorted, which noticeably affects their American pronunciation.
The good news is that once you know how the /ŋ/ sound is spelled and how to pronounce it correctly, you will sound more like an American.
Let's start with learning how to recognize the /ŋ/ in written words.
1.The /ŋ/ is most commonly represented by the combination of letters '-ng' at the end of words.
So, when you see a word that ends with the 'ng' combination, you should always pronounce the sound /ŋ/. For example: "going," "long," "king."
As you may have already noticed, the final 'g' is not pronounced, as it belongs to the /ŋ/ sound.
2. Sometimes you may find the combination 'ng' in the middle of a word. For example: "English," "finger," "jungle."
Now take a look:
In these words the letter 'n' is still pronounced as /ŋ/, but you should also pronounce the letter 'g' as it's part of the next syllable.
3. And finally, there's one last case. Listen to these words: "think," "thank" or "zinc."
The letter 'n' is pronounced as /ŋ/ as it occurs before the letter 'k' or the letter 'c.'
If it still feels complicated, here's a quick summary:
• If you see a word that ends with 'ng,' you have the /ŋ/ sound
• If you see the letter 'n' before the letters 'g,' 'k' or 'c,' pronounce the 'n' as /ŋ/.
And now, let's find out how to make the /ŋ/ sound.
To make the /ŋ/ sound correctly, it's important to pass the air through your nose.
Let's take a closer look at how to do that:
Pull the back of your tongue toward your throat.
Next: stop the air in your mouth with the back of your tongue and direct into your nose.
If you make this sound correctly, you should be able to stretch out this sound, like this: /ŋ-ŋ-ŋ-ŋ-ŋ/
Now, let's try saying it: /ŋ/, /ŋ/, /ŋ/
Here are a few typical mistakes people make when pronouncing the /ŋ/ sound:
1. The most common mistake is when people pronounce the /ŋ/ as the /n/ and /g/ sounds.
As a result, the /ŋ/ is distorted and sounds like /ng/. Remember, even though the /ŋ/ is represented by the two letters 'ng', it's still a single sound. The letter 'g' is never pronounced in the 'ng' combination at the end of words. Listen: "sing" /siŋ/ but not "sing" /sing/ or /siŋg/
2. This is similar to the previous problem when the /ŋ/ is pronounced as two sounds.
Some people don't pronounce the final 'g' when making the /ŋ/, and that's great, except for the fact that they pronounce the voiceless sound /k/ instead. As a result, the /ŋ/ sounds more like /nk/.
This way the word "sing" will sound more like "sink." Which, by the way, is a totally different word.
Compare: "sing" - "sink."
3. Finally, some people distort the /ŋ/ by placing the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge or against the back of their upper front teeth. As a result, the /ŋ/ sounds more like the /n/ sound.
[Pronunciation exercise 1]
• being
• bring
• doing
• dying
• going
• king
• lying
• ring
• sing
• sling
• sting
• swing
• thing
• wing
• wring
[Pronunciation exercise 2]
• along
• among
• bang
• belong
• gang
• hang
• hung
• long
• slang
• song
• strong
• sung
• swung
• wrong
• young
[Pronunciation exercise 3]
• bank
• crank
• donkey
• drank
• drink
• drunk
• ink
• junk
• length
• monkey
• pink
• thank
• think
• uncle
• zinc
[Pronunciation exercise 4]
• anger
• angle
• angry
• bungle
• congress
• English
• finger
• hunger
• hungry
• jungle
• language
• mingle
• shingle
• single
• triangle
You're done!
![How to End a Word in N [n] or NG [ŋ]: American English Pronunciation](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1th5v7dXRjk/mqdefault.jpg)
🎉Great news!🎉 Our brand new Sounds American website is up and running!🚀🎊 There's lots of content on pronunciation.🤓You can start with the article about the /ŋ/ sound: soundsamerican.net/article/consonant_sound_ng_as_in_thing
Dear people behind this work, I have just finished all your videos and I must tell you that thanks to your work, many people like me will be able to beat the fear that learning a language, not only English, produces within us due to our lack of confidence in our pronunciation. Learning the phonetic alphabet has been really easy with your work and I will be forever grateful for it.
Keep your great work.
Wow, thank you! BTW, if you haven't seen it, we share a lot of good information on our Community page here: ua-cam.com/channels/-MSYk9R94F3TMuKAnQ7dDg.htmlcommunity
i thought the g in sing was supposed to be pronounced, my life isn't the same anymore.
+Alex 🤣 who knows what other revelations life has prepared.:)
Are you a native American ?
Yes!!! Me too!!! All of my life i thought the same haha
What? I dont understand what are you talking about.
/ng/ is pronounced as a single sound, right? Unless it is in the middle of another consonant followed by a vowel, like siNGle, miNGle, or uN(g)cle not like siNg, riNG, or briNG.
Or you are refering to English speakers change /ŋ/ to /n/ when they change a root word into gerund like, siNG:siNGiNG:siNGiN', swim:swimmiNG:swimmiN'
My God! This is the best channel I ever found. Thank you, this is so useful.
+Wendy Reyes , glad you liked it! Don't forget to subscribe 😀😉
Thank you so much for these videos. I am using them in my phonetics class at the university and the students are so happy with them because they have improved their pronunciation a great deal.
+Jhon Hernandez , you're very welcome and we're glad to hear these videos are helpful! We'd love to have more teachers in our community and if you have any suggestions for the content of our videos, please, share!
Thanks a lot for making this channel! It's changing my life because I am learning all the sounds and I didn't even know that they existed! Pronunciation is key to me because I work as an instructional aide ! Thanks a lot! I love this channel! God bless you all!
Glad to hear our channel is so helpful!
GOAT tutorial. After 5 minutes of following along, I can pronounce this ŋ sound whenever I want effortlessly and I can totally feel and control the tongue movement. Thanks for the great work. 🎉
This is great! By the way, we also have tons of information on pronunciation on our website: soundsamerican.net/, check it out, if you're interested.
This is sooo incredibly helpful! Thank you so much for making this video!
Thank you for share your videos with us! I really appreciate it. 🧠
Wow, English is my native language, only to find out I'm not even speaking correctly. No wonder those who come here from other countries have such a hard time, I'll try to do better. ❤
😊👋
Extremely amazing explanation
+German Tovar , oh, thank you! Glad to hear it!
Excellent video, I will use it to learn the phonetic alphabet, pronunciation and improve my English study. Thank you.
Thank you for lessons which are so helpful and useful.
+ tanya tanya , you're welcome! Glad to hear you found them useful!
Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese also support this “ng” sound like “mang-nga” (Japanese comic), while it seems no English vocabulary which contains “NG” sound in the first two letters.
However, I just see some words like “Google Ngram Viewers”.
A very hard sound. :)
Can't agree more!
Literally impossible
@@priza_yt as a Brazilian, I agree lol we don't have this sound
I'm spanish native, it's very easy for me, even though we use the "n" sound
It's not the same sound 😢 I am teaching Spanish to some people who speak English and they tell me I don't pronounce "thing" and sing" properly . They can tell the difference between that sound and "n" 😅@@iittsdasty
How did you learn it?
Thank you for the great video!!! I tought this sound was use only at the end of words.
+Clemente Padilla Live and learn, right? :) We're glad this video was helpful.
Thanks for sharing all the information! Absolutely great and awesome channel!
Glad you like it!
As always, thank you for your help!!
This really helped me in my phonetics course. Thank you!
+Xtina Pinto Excellent! Glad to hear that!
I don’t know how to thank you enough, your channel is really helpful thanks a lot 🌹
You're very welcome!
I have finished watching all the videos. Oh gosh. It was too difficult, but it'd be more difficult if I didn't find the best channel ever.
Thank you! You guys are really amazing!
All of them? That's amazing!
@@SoundsAmerican yeah. Thank you 😊
Wonderful!thanks your video!
your videos are so much helpful to me. Thanks
I loved this lesson , thank for you this amazing and helpfull video
+klaylana silva , awesome! Thank you! Stay tuned for our new videos :).
Yo its 2018 and I'm Canadian.. hiiii wassup I'm 15 and can't pronounce ng right!! great.
I really love what you're doing! You got a pure American accent, I can listen to it for hours without getting rid of it.
I just wanna give a trick that I used to do before I'd learnt how to make this sound correctly.
I used to put the tip of my index on my alveolar ridge to make sure that my toungue is backward & that the air is escaping through my nose.
I truly wish this trick helps those who couldn't get the sound.
+Lydia Khelil Thank you Lydia! Awesome tip, we like it!
Thank you also for the kind words 😊.
Lydia Khelil what is alveolar ridge?
+Carola Cordova. I'm not Lydia, but I can answer your question. The alveolar ridge is also called the tooth ridge, it's the hard bump behind your upper front teeth.
Please, watch an extract of this video, we're pointing at the alveolar ridge:
ua-cam.com/video/q5a2-KuHkBU/v-deo.html
Hope it helps!
I can correct my pronunciation thanks to your videos. Thank you so much.
Chào
This video is awesome. Thank you very much.
+noname you're welcome!
Beside many words, I've always felt unnatural pronouncing the word "singing" with 2 Gs. Thanks a lot for this amazing video and for all the other great ones you make
🖖👋
Yony
@@SoundsAmerican hung
Thank you so much. This is a perfect channel. Please make a video of the dark L.
+Clemente Padilla You're welcome! Sure, stay tuned!
Wow!!! It was really helpful for those like me who speak English as a second language. Even though there's the ŋ sound in Portuguese, I had never noticed there are words like "singer" where the G isn't pronounced. Thanks a lot and keep up the amazing work.
In case you want to dig a little deeper 😎: soundsamerican.net/article/single_or_engaged_one_of_these_words_doesnt_have_the_n_sound_but_which_one
Not in Brazilian Portuguese :/ Portuguese people, Galicians and Spanish speakers are able to say it but Brazilians can't
Omg it took me decades to realize that there is such a consonant. Trying to ponounce it is really confusing, because it's so different than pronouncing /n/.
But I guess practice can fix it :)
Thank you so much!
Of course, practice will fix it. Let us know how it goes!
Thank you soo much that's soo helpful 💖💖💖
+Sardonia Huner , you're welcome!
Thank you so much ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ This has helped me so much since I know it!
thanks for this lesson ..it was very useful ..
+Adam Adam , glad to hear that! :)
Thanks a lot. I found it very useful
Thank you!
u r really the most fantastic Channel 4 the American Sounds .. very glad to discover such an awesome channel .. Keep Going .. and thanks so so much 4 ur awesome and very useful vids ..
+Muhammad Tufa , thank you!
You video is really helpful! I couldn't tell the difference between "ban" and "bang" before. Now I know, but still need a lot of practice.
+Xiangmeng Ge glad to hear that! Yes, the /n/ and the /ŋ/ are often problematic for our students. However, once they learn how to pronounce the /ŋ/, they quickly learn how to distinguish between those two. Yes, practice is necessary and very helpful! :) Good luck! :)
I love this channel🥺❤️.
omg, this helps alot, I wish there is an app I can download, thanks so much
+Tim Nhim Glad to hear our videos helped! We're using our own app which is not released to the public yet. We're working hard to make it happen soon and we'll announce the release on this channel. Stay tuned!
Absolutely wonderful
Glad you liked it! 😊👋
This video is amazing, thanks bud
love your content
Thank you!
Thank you your video that help me a lot! :)
You're welcome!👋
Good job again! Keep it up! (We're also waiting the app for mobile :D)
+Cosmin Telescu Thank you, we will! :) Yes, we know, working hard to get you the app asap! :)
Best channel on UA-cam... perfection and next level
Thank you so much 😀
Great!!!
多謝！
Thank you very much! 💚👍
great video for / ŋ / (NG) sound i hope more videos. Thank you.
really, i've learnt more here than at my school haha xD thanks!!
+Anjelina23 Then you just have to send the link to your teacher :):):)
sure!! xD
+Anjelina23 🤣👍
graet video thank you for your time that you took for help us
+pedro , you're welcome! Glad that you liked our videos.
This video really help me Thank you Sound American 👌 awesome video
Excellent, glad to hear that!
Thank you so much! Now I can't even read a sentence that has this phonetic 🤦♀️ I used to pronounce the g 🤦♀️ anyway you are the best🙏🌹
The best vídeo about this theme
great!!
My favorite channel ❤
+Alhussein Ali 😀👋
This nasal sound is not easy for people who speak Spanish. My students have a lot of problems, but I try to practice with them more and more during the classes.
N before c or k is actually ŋ in Spanish too, natives just don't notice.
@@KaiiAyrenNevaeh you're right!
@@KaiiAyrenNevaeh Yes, “n” sounds like this before hard “c”, both “g” and “j”.
Great thank u
+Lin Shi, you're welcome! Glad you like it!
you are the best ever yet
+Bendy Jean-louis , thank you! Glad you like our channel! 😀👋
Thanks for clearing this up. It made me confused the usages ug and UK, case in point the words sink vs sing that I pronounced sing as sink.
Glad it was helpful!
Thaks you so much !!!
+victor luis mustafa, you're welcome!
ThaNGk so much!
+MrFire Lole 😊 You're welcome!👋
this is really helpful. I have been in the US for a few years, but still mis-pronounce this sound.
+JM Guo, it's one of the most frequently mispronounced sounds in English. Takes a lot of time to learn to pronounce it correctly. Glad to hear this video is helpful for you!
Amazing video.!
+Minh Trí Đỗ 😀 Glad you liked it!🖖
Thanks a lot
My native language is Spanish, but I still remember pronouncing this consonant and wondering why nobody though of that, I was even thinking of creating a new language with new words (like this "ng"), now i find out that I am not the only one who thought of this
P.S. Love your channel madly, on a scale from 1 to 10 I'd rate it 11 and then some
+Alex Alex 😊 Thank you, we're glad to hear that! 🖖
Good.
Thanks. I love you.
We love you too!😊👋
Thank you :)
You're welcome!
Thank you so much sir 💜
Welcome!
Great video!💐💐💐
Thank you! 😃
It's helpful
Thank you 💖
Welcome!
It is really helpful! Thank you so much. But I am confused about this sound and N sound
+sara smith, you're welcome! What exactly is confusing? Maybe we can help? :)
I'm shocked that the word length is pronounced with k. I thought it was just 'lengh' without the g but never noticed there was a k instead... lol... love this chanel!!!! And yes! I definetly used to pronounce the g in ng ending words... haha... gotta work on that!
thank you
+giorgi meliqishvili , you're welcome! :)
Awesome channel
+Ahmed Hossam Glad you liked it! 😀😀👋
thanks
+Lisandro Costa , you're very welcome! :)
I love this channel !!! I've searched all over UA-cam but I haven't found many videos on how to pronounce words ending in -nger. For example: I know we have to (kinda) stop the air when pronouncing words like singer, hanger, ringer etc. But are anger, stronger, and finger in the same category? Thanks again, Hadar. You're amazing! :)
Who is Hadar?
@@SoundsAmerican hahaha. Sorry, typo
Thanks so much
No problem!
Thanks for making these amazing videos! Very helpful in understanding American pronunciations. Is there a website we can get access to these sound board?
What sound board do you mean?
I've been redirected from your app (English sounds) to watch your videos on youtube, and I can say, some of them souds are challenging to pronounce especially at the time of speaking you don't remember where to place your tongue, and you do it how you would do with your mother tongue instead, but the fact is that I'm using ELSA speaking A.I app to avoid mispronoun the sound I try to master..
Feel thankful for ur app and also for ur YB content Blessings from Nicaragua..
This sounds /ŋ/ is difficult for non native speaking
Yeah. It and "th" voiced and voiceless sounds. I almost broke my tongue trying to pronounce "length".
I don't know how to put tongue in this position
In portuguese br we have many nasals sounds, that song /ŋ/ could be found in words like domingo /domiŋɡo/.
I'm explaining that now, but I have never thought about it before haha
@@jeflm18 yeah gladly were brazilians, it makes it so much easier to pronounce the ŋ
In Philippines we do have traditional character for /ŋ/ (: ᜅ/ᜥ/ᝥ/ᝅ) but since we adapted latin characters we use /ng/ as a single alphabet instead.
Altho I disagree, many non native speakers even most are having difficult accent in English or non speaker at all, yet they can pronounce /ŋ/ with an ease. Cus This velar phoneme is pretty common around the world hence most langauges also use this sound as well.
excellent videos
Thank you very much!
Great stuff! I really like your channel, always insightful and thought out videos.
I wanted to ask a tricky question. When I do this sound, it comes off with a slight but noticeable sound at the end. Sound is similar to k, but k is closer to the ridge, whereas this one happens near the palate. I CAN say "sing" and "sink" and they sound differently, but if I say smth like "singing" or "sing sing sing" it can be heard as the tongue "unsticks" from the top. Should I try to fix it?
+Nick L Hello there! Could you please record yourself saying the words you mentioned (best if you pronounce them several times), upload the file somewhere and give us a link? It's too difficult to offer advice without hearing how you pronounce that sound.🤔
Hey there, thanks for your willingness to help! Really appreciated. After I left that post, I actually spent some time practicing the sound, and I think I'm getting the hang of it, slowly, but surely.
It sounds like this (please turn down volume before playing), www.dropbox.com/s/vxqfs7nevhtrn65/singing%20sing%20sing.mp3?dl=0 , I thinks its actually decent. :)
I think that because our mouths are all different, due to "structural difference", some people may have unavoidable clicks here and there. I came to this conclusion by digging around the net, in forvo.com, checking ing-ings and ang-ings, and some people do have this "clicks"/"pops". Here's an example from M-W where I can hear the same sound learnersdictionary.com/definition/sing .
So, with time and practice (I think) anyone can improve to the point when little pops like that won't matter in their speech.
Thanks again! It came out a bit long, sorry.
+Nick L, Hello there, Nick! Np, we're glad to help! We've listened to your recording. Sounds like you've got it! We couldn't hear any redundant clicks or pops, your / ŋ/ sounds great.
Now we recommend practicing as many words as possible and then advance your pronunciation skills. The speech-language pathology model to improve pronunciation recommends that once you're able to make the sound in words to then begin to use the sound in words in sentences (up to 2-3 words per
sentences). You could initially read these aloud at first if it's necessary.
Then move to conversation, focusing only on making sure that you make your / ŋ/ correctly.
BTW, did you see our advanced exercise for this sound? It's pretty challenging 😊 but it works. ua-cam.com/video/pVptIO1xMoQ/v-deo.html
Hope it helps! Let us know if you have any other questions!
Thanks you a lot
+andelko cvjekovic You're welcome!
great job!
+Robin Zhai thank you :) 🖖
how can I reach you by email? I would like to work with you
+Robin Zhai , could you please send us a message via our channel (here's how: support.google.com/youtube/answer/57955?hl=en). We'll send you our email as a response.
Well done I like so much
+Dragon Bridge Glad to hear that. 😊👋
I am from Viet Nam thank you very much.
+ long nguyen You're welcome!
"length" sounds more like /leiŋθ/ instead of /leŋθ/ to me. Is that so? Thanks!
youre the best!
+Benny Avilés Thank you! 😄🖖
thanks much
+Tính Nguyễn Văn You're welcome!
Hi there.
First of all I really appreciate what you are doing. I use your videos to teach the phonetic symbols at university and the students really enjoy them.
Just one question about this one.
In the video you said that when /n/ is followed by /g/ sound in the middle of a word it gets this sound but what about the word "engage"?
Because I looked it up in different kinds of dictionaries and there was just the /n/ sound.
Hello there!
Say hi to your students from our team! We're glad our videos are helpful.
You're asking a great question! The letter 'N' in the word "engage" is in an unstressed syllable: "en'gage," so it represents the /n/ sound. If 'N' is in a stressed syllable, it's typically pronounced as /ŋ/: "singer" /ˈsɪŋ·ɚ/, "hunger" /ˈhʌŋ·ɡɚ/, "ringer" /ˈrɪŋ·ɚ/.
Hope it helps!
You have a really good video, they are really useful! Just wondering what is the application that you are using in your video (practice part) thanks
We're using our own app, but we haven't released it to the public yet. We're planning to do it very soon and we'll announce the release on this channel. Stay tuned!
thanks a lot
You are most welcome!
@@SoundsAmerican
thank you ☺️🌹
This is one of the most complicated sounds for me, then there are some hellish sounds to pronounce like ʊ, u, gz (pegs), and somehow ɑ: is different from ʌ but I hear them as if they were the same
Thank you for the video!! You deserve a lot more subscribers. I have a question when I took an accent class, the teacher said there is a little g at the end of "ing", and sometimes I feel like I do hear Native speakers saying it. Are all these people mispronouncing it, is that perfect pronunciation, or what is going on??
Thanks you again!!
+Fabian Cahue, well, we teach that the /g/ in the '-ing' should not be pronounced, it's actually a mistake to pronounce it in this case. 😀
Fabian Cahue they’re mispronouncing it. Credit to you for actually wanting to educate yourself on the correct pronunciation. 👍🏼