How to make the N sound relating to the D position American English Pronunciation
I worked with a student recently to get a
good, clean N sound. One thing that helped
her was to think of the tongue position being
similar to the D. In this American English
pronunciation video, we’ll look at that concept.
The N position similar to the position of
the D. Let’s take the words ‘dice’ and ‘nice’.
For the D, dd, dd, you can see the tongue
position is raised here, where the front part
is touching just behind the front top teeth.
Dd, dd, dice. Now look at the position for
the N: nn, nn, nice. Again, it’s the very
front part of the tongue that’s raising and
touching right here. Nice. Dice, nice. So,
a good exercise to work on your N is to switch
back and forth between syllables that start
with a D and syllables that start with an
N. Da-da-da-da-da, na-na-na-na-na, for example.
Do use a mirror to make sure that it’s the
front part of your tongue that’s raising.
If it’s any part of the tongue further back
that’s touching the roof of the mouth, the
N is going to start to sound somewhat like
an NG. To have a very clean N sound, it needs
to be the very front part of the tongue that’s
making that movement.
I also want to point out that the jaw does
not have to close for the tongue to come in
to the N position. Na-na-na. In fact, if you
close the jaw every time you make the N, the
sound is going to get a little trapped, and
it’s going to be a lot more work. Let’s take
for example the word ‘banana’. Banana. Watch
my mouth as I say that. Banana. You can see
the jaw hardly has to move at all in that
word. All of the articulation happens with
the tongue. Banana, banana.
I hope this video will help you focus your
work to get a good, clean N sound. En-en-en-en-en.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.
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