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