ŋ The ng in sing and thing

How to say ŋ

1. 1

   Start to say the k of king, and freeze at the moment the back of your tongue closes against the roof of your mouth.

2. 2

   Now hum instead of letting the k go. With the back of the tongue still closed, the sound can only leave through the nose: that's ŋ.

3. 3

   Let it fade without a g. In most English, sing ends on the hum itself.

4. 4

   Then set n beside it: sin, sing. For n, the tip of the tongue presses up behind the top teeth. For ŋ, the tip stays down behind the bottom teeth.

Why ŋ is hard for Japanese speakers

You already say ŋ in Japanese. The ん in 音楽 (ongaku) and 漫画 (manga) is ŋ, because a g follows it. What Japanese lacks is ŋ as a sound of its own: ん changes shape to fit whatever comes next, so the ear never has to tell n and ŋ apart.

Katakana splits it into two sounds: sing is シング, king is キング, long is ロング. Saying the グ gives the word a Japanese accent, and listening for it makes ŋ harder to catch, because English speakers don't say it.

How ŋ is spelled

Singer and finger look alike, but only finger has a g after the ŋ. As a rule of thumb, ng at the end of a word has no g, and neither do the words made from it, like singer and singing. Inside a word, as in finger, English and hungry, there is a g. Longer, stronger and younger are the exceptions: they add a g, although long, strong and young have none.

ŋ in American and British English

In most accents, ŋ at the end of a word has no g after it. Some speakers in the north-west of England, around Manchester and Liverpool, do add one, so sing can end in a light g there.

In relaxed speech, the -ing ending often becomes n, so going sounds like "goin'". That swap is a matter of style rather than accent, and the same speaker may use both.

Studies: Nozawa & Cheon 2012