In this English Pronunciation tutorial, you're going to learn to speak English
clearly by learning the three mistakes that people make when they're making the /ŋ/ sound in English.
I'm going to show you the mistakes, I'm going to show you how to stop making the mistakes,
and then I'm going to give you a really really useful exercise to help you
then integrate the correct pronunciation into your English speech.
So let's dive in!
Hello and welcome to How To Speak English clearly and English School Online.
The channel that teaches foreign professionals to speak English clearly so they have more confidence in English they
come across as more professional and they enjoy a better quality of life both at work and in their
social lives when they're speaking English. In last week's tutorial you learned the difference
between the 'N' sound as in 'not' and the /ŋ/ sound as in 'thing,' okay, and it all comes down to the
difference between the tongue in the mouth. For 'N' the tip of the tongue touches the top of the
mouth, and for /ŋ/ the back of the tongue touches the back of the mouth
Okay.
But there's still three mistakes I often hear people making, even once they know how to make this sound correctly,
and those three mistakes are these:
They either make the /g/ sound at the end of /ŋ/, as in 'thinkinG;'
The second mistake is that they make the /k/ sound as in 'thinkink;'
And the third mistake is that they make a no sound at the end so 'thinkiñ,' okay.
So what I'm gonna do, first of all, is I've got my torch here I'm gonna shine it into my mouth
and then you're gonna see what happens to the tongue when I'm making it incorrectly, okay.
So first of all how do we make the sound correctly?
The back of the tongue touches the back of the mouth, like this:
/ŋ/
Airflow has stopped coming out before the tongue drops down, and what that means is you only get the /ŋ/ sound and nothing else.
I'll now show you the three mistakes and what happens when I make each of the mistakes that I hear people making, okay.
We'll start with the /g/, okay.
So the /g/.
For me to make the 'G' sound or the 'K' sound in English the same part of my tongue the back of it,
is touching the same part of my mouth, which is the back of the mouth.
'K' and 'G', /k/ and /g/ are plosive sounds, where airflow stops and then explodes out.
/k/
/g/
The only difference between 'K' and 'G' is that one sound is voiced
/g/
and the other sound /k/
/k/
is unvoiced and my voice box is staying still.
So for the /ŋ/ sound if I make a /g/ sound afterwards this is what it looks like
'walkinG'
Okay.
With a 'K' sound
'walkink'
Can you hear there's a
/g/
at the back of my mouth? Okay.
So to get around that, like I explained a moment ago to make this sound correctly, all we do is we stop airflow
whilst the tongue is still in the /ŋ/ position
/ŋ/
Okay.
Now let me show you two words 'eating' and 'thing,' but with bad pronunciation.
'Eating'
With 'K' pronunciation:
'Eating'
Okay.
'Thing' with 'K' pronunciation:
'Thing'
And what you're actually doing if you're making that mistake is you're saying
in completely different words altogether, which is the word 'think.'
Let me show you the third mistake now, okay, and that's where we go:
/ŋʌ/
So what's happening there is, my tongue is dropping back down
but airflow is still coming out and that gives you the /ŋʌ/ sound and we do not want that, okay.
So let me show you that in two words. This is the right pronunciation- the good pronunciation:
'Thing'
and this is bad pronunciation:
'Thing'
/ŋʌ/
Okay. We really really really want to avoid the tongue doing this /ŋʌ/ or /k/ or /gʌ/
Okay.
So, those are the three mistakes.
I really recommend that you do I've done here, which is use a torch
to actually look into your mouth whilst you record yourself, just like I'm doing here to the camera, okay. We all do it.
And you'll be able to see for yourself if you're making this mistake.
The next thing, once you've worked out if you're making this mistake, is this:
Step one is to practice making the /ŋ/ sound on its own until you're doing it consistently and correctly.
/ŋ/
And be critical with yourself. Don't move on while you're still hearing:
/ŋk/
Okay. Just don't move on, practice this until you get it right.
Step two is to put it into a combination of sounds like
'-ing'
Okay.
'Walking,' 'eating,' 'thing.'
Also, you could put it into the '-ang' sound combination '-ang,' okay.
'Bang'
So once you've got the sound correct no /k/, /g/, /ŋʌ/.
Once you've got '-ing' or '-ang' or ideally both of them sounding good with no /k/, /g/, /ŋʌ/ at the end
then here's what I want you to do to fast track this sound correctly into your English speech.
I want you to think about the top ten words that you use every day that contain this sound at the end.
So think about your job, okay. You might be 'working.' Think about what you're doing and what you might tell people that you're doing;
'Eating,' 'drinking,' 'working,' 'sleeping,' 'doing,' okay. Think of ten examples
they don't have to be in ending words as in, the continuous of a verb, It could be 'thing' or 'sing,' okay.
'What are you going to do?' 'I'm going to sing,' alright. Practice these ten words that you use every day and I
guarantee there'll be at least ten words with an '-ing' ending that you use everyday.
Practice them until you get them right, and then focus on using them correctly in your English speech.
And I guarantee that, if you do, it's going to make the world of difference to your English Pronunciation, okay.
So it's as simple as that.
Thumbs up if you've liked the video!
I know that if you do the exercise that I've given you here it's going to radically improve your pronunciation
and it's going to make you sound way more professional in English. You'll be speaking way more clearly as a result.
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And I cannot wait to see you in next week's English pronunciation tutorial.
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