How to Pronounce the I in ING American English

In this American English pronunciation video,
we’re going to go over how to pronounce the

I in ING.

The ING ending is written in IPA with the
‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel followed by the NG

consonant sound. But actually, when the IH
vowel is followed by this consonant, it tends

to sound a lot more like the ‘ee’ as in ‘she’
vowel. Take for example these words. Win,

wing, and ween. ‘Win’ is written with the
‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. Wi-, wi-, win. ‘Wing’

is also written with the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’
vowel, but clearly the vowel sound is different.

Wi-, wi-, win, wi-, wi-, wing. It’s actually
a lot more like the sound in ‘ween’. Wee-,

wee-, ween.

So keep this in mind when you look up a word
in the dictionary and find the IPA ‘ih’ as

in ‘sit’ followed by the NG consonant sound.
It is more like the ‘ee’ as in ‘she’ vowel.

Let’s look at some more examples.

Sing, si-i-i-i, sing. Nothing. Nothi-i-i-i,
nothing. Winning, winni-i-i, winning. Ring.

Ri-i-i-i, ring. I hope this helps to clear
up the confusion that some students have when

they hear this ING ending sounding so much
like an ‘ee’ as in ‘she’.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.

Don’t stop there. Have fun with my real-life
English videos. Or get more comfortable with

the IPA in this play list. Learn about the
online courses I offer, or check out my latest

video.