This lesson is about the ng sound, (/ŋ/ Phoneme), as in the words:
- think
- thing
- walking
It is a sound from the Single Consonants group.
How to pronounce the ng sound
The ng sound is called the “velar nasal,” which means that you curl your tongue up against the back of our mouth and the air comes out your nose.
The /ŋ/ phoneme is, made through the nose rather than the mouth and it is Voiced, which means you use your vocal cords, but it is defined by the position of your tongue, and is made with the flow of air through the mouth completely blocked.
To produce the /ŋ/ sound, curl the back of your tongue up against the back of your mouth so that it completely blocks your throat then voice out through your nose. The front of your tongue just hangs forward.
How the ng sound is spelled
The ŋ sound is most frequently spelled ‘n-g,’ but sometimes is spelled with just and ’n’ when it is in the middle of a word like:
- thank
Examples of the /ŋ/ Phoneme
Words never begin with the /ŋ/ Phoneme. Here are some words that end with it.
- bring
- young
- long
- morning
The most common use of the /ŋ/ phoneme is the ‘i-n-g’ suffix.
- building
- feeling
- working
- interesting
Words with an /ŋ/ in the middle are uncommon but here are a few.
- thankful
- finger
- stronger
- thinking
So that is it for the ng sound, it is a fun sound and one of my favorites. It is very common and can appear at the beginning, middle and end of words. For more resources to help you improve your pronunciation, we have made additional videos on each of the groups of sounds Vowels, Diphthongs, Single Consonants, or Consonant Pairs as well as a video explaining the phonetic chart