Hadar Shemesh explains why NG is a single sound, not N plus G. Your tongue goes to the back of your mouth against the soft palate, and air flows through your nose. The most common mistake is adding a hard G sound at the end.
Hey guys, it's hadar. And this is the accent's way. And today we're going to talk about the NG consonant sound N. What was that? Let's try it again. Yes, it's a sound that is usually represented with the consonant letters N and G. So a word like sing is not sing. The. There is no n and then a G sound. Sing. No, it is one consonant that is produced in the back of the mouth. Sing Sing LONG playing okay, so how do you make this sound? Basically, the NG is a combination of the N sound. So it has that nasal quality because the air is coming out through the nose, but it has the placement of a G sou because the back of the tongue goes up and blocks the air in the back while touching the soft palate. G, N. So to make this sound, the tongue goes up in the back, blocks the air, then you release the air through the nasal passages and the air comes out through the nose. So when you open your mouth, you can see that the tongue is totally down. Another way to think about it is try to make an N while keeping the tip of the tongue down. What you're going to do is probably compensate for the fact that you can't bring the tip of the tongue down up. So you're going to bring the back of the tongue up. Sing. Wrong. Now, again, because of the representation of the G in the spelling, a lot of people pop the G sound at the end of the word. Longing Singing. When in fact these are all NG consonants. Singing, longing and ping. Now, what's the best way to practice it? First of all, practice making the sound. Alright, so great, you got the sound right. Then practice it in typical positions where you're more likely to produce it with a G sound. Sing. Uh, Sing Writing. Not write writing. So you want to stretch and hold out the NG sound and then fade it out nicely until you don't hear any more sounds. Don't pop a G at the end. Writing and long. And step number three is is to use it in minimal pairs. So compare words that end with an N to words that end with an Ng. Sin vs Sing Ran vs Rang Lawn vs Long. All right, good job. Okay, so that's it. Thank you for watching. Please share it with your friends if you liked it. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. It's right here or here or somewhere around. Have a great week and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
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