Lessons Unit 1, lesson 41
ŋ as in sing
One consonant, on its own page. Hear it, watch where it sits in each word's sheet, then say the words yourself.
What do the marks mean?
Want the full walkthrough? Read the map explains every mark, with practice.
ŋthe ng in sing
One sound made at the back of the nose — not n plus g. Say sing and hold the end: siiing. Don't let a hard g pop out afterwards.
Now say it yourself
Read each word from its sheet, out loud, three times. Where there's a play button, listen first and copy what you hear. Slow is fine — speaking clearly matters more than speaking fast. Tap a word's microphone to record yourself and see which sounds landed.
Check your pronunciation, on this device. The first use downloads a small AI listener (about 40 MB, one time, then it's cached). Your voice is analyzed here in your browser — it never leaves your device.
One sound, not two
ŋ looks like it should be n plus g, but it's a single sound made at the back of the mouth, with the air humming out through the nose the whole time. Say sing and hold the ending — siiing — without any extra sound sneaking in afterward.
If you hear a hard g pop out at the end of ring or king, that's an extra sound that shouldn't be there in most American pronunciations.
The -ing ending trap
This sound shows up constantly in -ing endings — bring, wing, morning — and it's easy to let the tongue tip come forward and say n instead, so sing starts to sound like sin.
A quick check: say song and thing, and make sure the back of your tongue stays raised for the whole final sound, rather than your tongue tip sneaking up to the front.