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Toshi
Professional Teacher
#ng #ŋ #ŋg There are two pronunciations for ‘ng’. [ŋ] hanger, singer You don’t explode ‘n’ like Japanese nasalized ‘nga’. [ŋg] anger, hunger You explode ‘g’ after ‘n’. There are no rules or patterns as ‘anger’ and ‘hanger’ are different from each other. Languages are arbitrary. If there are some reasons, ‘hanger’ and ‘singer’ are attached ‘-er’ later. ‘anger’ is from old norse ‘angr’. ‘hunger’ is from old English ‘hungor’. I found that they originally had ‘r’ in their words. I have asked a native English speaker whether you distinguish them, or pronounce ‘g’ or not. He pronounced them again and again himself and answered he couldn’t recognize differences between them. That's just how native speakers are. Japanese people also would not realize ‘su’ in ‘desu’, ‘masu’ become voiceless like ‘des’ , ‘mas’. Though it is just ‘voiceless’, not ‘omission’. Only few Japanese know about this except for some Japanese teachers. Other examples, ‘ki’ and ‘ku’ in ‘kikuchi’ , which is a very popular Japanese name, become ‘voiceless’. If you pronounce these ‘ki’ and ‘ku’ as ‘voiced sounds’, it sounds clumsy and like the pronunciation of foreigners. But they often use ‘voiced sounds’ not ‘voiceless sounds’ in the west area of Japan.
Dec 18, 2025 5:42 AM