IPA reference · consonant
ŋ — velar nasal
The back of the tongue seals at the soft palate and air escapes through the nose.
Also called: eng, ng sound
How to make the velar nasal
Say "singer" and hold the ng. English only allows it at the end of a syllable, so the challenge is putting it at the start.
English reference points: sing, thinking. If you speak English natively you already produce this sound — the work is recognising it and placing it where the target language wants it.
Languages that use it
| Language | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Thai | งู | snake |
| Indonesian | nganga | to gape |
| Finnish | kengät | shoes |
Sounds it gets confused with
Most pronunciation errors are not random — they are a substitution of the nearest sound the speaker already owns. These are the usual substitutions for ŋ, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
English speakers add an audible /ɡ/ after it in languages where the nasal stands alone.
What this means for learners
Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian all allow word-initial /ŋ/, which English speakers find genuinely hard despite already owning the sound.
Teaching this sound
Describing a sound in words gets a student roughly half the way there. The other half is hearing it produced correctly, immediately after producing it incorrectly, with both versions available to replay. That is the argument for recording during the lesson rather than after it: the student leaves with your model of ŋ attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol ŋ make?
ŋ is the velar nasal. The back of the tongue seals at the soft palate and air escapes through the nose. In English you can hear it in: sing, thinking.
How do you pronounce ŋ?
Say "singer" and hold the ng. English only allows it at the end of a syllable, so the challenge is putting it at the start.
Which languages have the velar nasal?
Among the languages covered here: Thai (งู, “snake”); Indonesian (nganga, “to gape”); Finnish (kengät, “shoes”).
What is the difference between ŋ and ɡ?
English speakers add an audible /ɡ/ after it in languages where the nasal stands alone.