How to Pronounce before n m or American English Pronunciation

this is in response to an email that

I’ve recently received hi I’m a little

confused about the bat sound when it

precedes the consonants mmm and mmm that

is the N and G and M consonant sounds

because in dictionaries they are all

written with the bat vowel sound but I

actually find them to be more like

something else I’d really like to get

this straight thank you very much this

is an excellent point I had been

thinking of doing a blog entry on this

myself and had not really gelled the

idea and so thank you so much for this

email this is exactly right that when

the app as in bat vowel sound is

followed by an N ng or M consonant sound

within the same syllable the a vowel

sound is really not a pure a vowel sound

even though it is written that way in

IPA this case is similar to the dark L

sound which I did a blog on and have

since referenced many times and the dark

L sound is written in IPA simply as an L

but when it is at the end of a word or

syllable it is always preceded by a

vowel like sound no matter what else

comes before it now this is slightly

different in that the case is only with

the as in bat vowel followed by one of

these three consonant sounds let’s go

ahead and break down an example the word

pan it is written with the consonant

sound

the ass as in bat vowel sound and the mm

n consonant sound in IPA ah hmm now

watch my mouth as I say the word pan the

mouth does not open as much as it does

on the pure aa as in bat sound ah hmm

pan so what is the vowel sound if not a

P

or as in bat pan pay it the first thing

you can see is that the corners of the

lips so they do come up a little bit

it’s not as drastic a pull as it is in

the AH as in that sound

pan-pan it’s much more subtle the tongue

however stays in the same position pan

so the tongue is the same as the at as

in that the other major difference is

that the jaw doesn’t drop quite as much

as it does on the as in bat sound pan

pan here we see the two side-by-side on

the left is the at as in bat pure vowel

sound being spoken on its own on the

right is the word pan being spoken so

you can see again that the corners of

the mouth do not come back and up as

much in the word pan as they do in the

pure vowel sound and the jaw does not

drop quite as much however as you can

see the tongue position is the same the

other thing to note is that it is not a

single sound it is more of a diphthong

sound pan of this sort of modified at

going into a schwa before the end

pan-pan a few other words that have this

at as in bat followed by the consonant

sound animal animal animal

tan-tan-tan-tan

and and and pan pan pan this modified a

vowel is the same when it is followed by

an M consonant sound within the same

syllable for example the word Pam this

is the same sound as in case one when

the ass as in bat was followed by an N

it is this modified ass sound followed

by a schwa pam other example words damn

damn damn AM M AM ambiguous ambiguous

the third case when it is followed by an

NG and sound now in IPA

when these are in the same syllable

again the vowel sound is written

followed directly by the consonant sound

it is not however a pure aa sound in

this case however the sound is not the

same as it is in the previous two cases

where it was the modified a followed by

a schwa in this case when it is followed

by the ng sound it is actually like the

ay as in say diphthong let’s take for

example the word anger

and the word danger a anger deign danger

to me that sounds like the exact same

vowel sound preceding the ng consonant

sound anger danger eh eh now in IPA the

word anger is written with the @ as in

bat sound followed by the ng sound in

IPA the word danger is written with the

a as in say diphthong and as I’ve just

said to me to my ear these sounds are

exactly the same anger so when the a

sound is written in IPA followed by the

ng sound as in anger

it is really pronounced much more like

the ay as in say diphthong a few more

examples hang hain’t hang bang bang bang

language language Fang Fang Fang

so the IPA is not a perfect tool it

doesn’t capture every sound within a

language perfectly and that is

understandable as language is such a

complex thing so the lesson here is when

you read a word written in IPA with via

as in bat sound followed in the same

syllable by an M or an N consonant sound

it is actually pronounced as a modified

a sound going into a schwa making a

diphthong like sound and that modified

aa is one in which the jaw does not drop

quite as much and the corners of the

mouth do not come back and up quite as

much when you see the ass as in bat

sound followed by the ng consonant sound

within the same syllable

it is pronounced as the ay as in say

diphthong