Pictorials Of Tongue Position For Difficult Thai Consonants?

[trader1]

Anyone have a link to pictures/diagrams?especially for ง

[JAS21]

Anyone have a link to pictures/diagrams?especially for ง

Now that would be useful...I could send you a sketch for that one if all else fails.

[meadish_sweetball]

The tongue position is identical to 'k' and 'g'. The difference is that the tongue stays in place for 'ng', and the air escapes out the nasal passage instead of through the mouth.

So apart from the basic tongue position, you just do the same thing as for an 'n' (which shares tongue position with a 'd').

[trader1]

Thanks for that!

If anyone does want to send a sketch it would also be appreciated.

[katana]

Rikker gave a nice explanation here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=73901

[trader1]

Here is the quote from Rikker with a comment from another member following. BTW my thai teacher says I say the sound corectly after following the advice given by meadish

Rikker:

I'll try approaching this from the standpoint of articulatory phonetics, and hope it is helpful.

In pronouncing this (or any) sound, consider two important pieces of information:

Place of articulation

Manner of articulation

The sound of ง is pronounced with the tongue touching the soft palate (that is the place of articulation), and it is pronounced by expelling air through the nasal cavity (that's the manner of articulation).

I would guess that tongue position is your problem. To help you pronounce ง correctly, compare it with other sounds that have the exact same place of articulation. In English, these are /g/ and /k/. In Thai, it's ก, ค, etc. Move your tongue back as if you were going to so say a word like "go". When you prepare to say "go," you should notice that your tongue forms a seal so that no air comes out until you expel it in a sudden burst. So /g/ has the identical *place* of articulation as ง, but has a different manner of articulation of articulation. So prepare to say /g/ again, but this time, instead of letting air come out through your mouth, relax your throat so that the air comes out through your nose instead. It's critical here that your tongue *does not move* from where you first positioned it. You'll know your doing it right if while you are saying the sound ง, and you plug your nose, no air comes out of your mouth. That is, the air is blocked.

ง shares the same manner of articulation with น and ม, but they each have different places of articulation. That is, for each different nasal sound ง น ม, you form a seal, blocking air from flowing out of your mouth, and let it flow through your nose instead. So the trick is to form the seal in the right place. If you form it with your lips, the sound is ม. If you form it with your tongue right behind your top teeth, the sound will be น. And if you form the seal against the soft palate at the back of your mouth, the sound will be ง. If you're not moving your tongue far enough back, and forming the seal at the hard palate, the sound will be like "ny", like the Spanish ñ in word like "año".

Good luck, and keep it up. You'll get it

.

To add a non-technical comment to this. There is an excercise that I used when I first tried to get the sound right and that was to say "ring" several times in a row and then try to leave the "ri" off. Further on you can add an "oo" sound to expand it to snake for example. This way you can feel the effect the 'ng' sound has on your tongue position.

[ThaidleHands]

Would just want to add that when you practice ง do it softly at first. Otherwise you may get in the habit of producing a click in the top of the throat which sounds like a speech impediment.

[meadish_sweetball]

The click is probably from involuntarily forming a seal all the way back in the throat instead of just where the tongue is touching the palate.

Relaxing the throat as adviced by Rikker should do the trick.

[wmthai]

Funny, so much text to explain one simple sound. Always thought that sound [ง] was native to English language. It has phonetical sign [ŋ] (speaking = [spi:kiŋ]). Any difficulties to pronounce it?

[DavidHouston]

Funny, so much text to explain one simple sound. Always thought that sound [ง] was native to English language. It has phonetical sign [ŋ] (speaking = [spi:kiŋ]). Any difficulties to pronounce it?

What is the usage in English of an initial [ŋ]? Certainly the sound exists in English in the middle of a word and at the end of a word (e.g., present continuing tense, "singing") but does it show as an initial?

[meadish_sweetball]

Funny, so much text to explain one simple sound. Always thought that sound [ง] was native to English language. It has phonetical sign [ŋ] (speaking = [spi:kiŋ]). Any difficulties to pronounce it?

Following the same kind of reasoning, it should be easy for Thais to pronounced words like 'marxists' based on the fact that all the individual phonemes of the word occur in Thai. But just like David points out, in what position the phoneme occurs makes a difference too.

[realthaideal]

Ok, given that it exists in English as a sound already, the trick is to find where and when you do use it and then morph it into the Thai word. I have done this to teach Farang to speak Thai several times. Take a word like bringing...as in 'bringing a cake to Grandmother's house.' Then try saying it a few times clearly and slowly, really listening to the sounds you make. Switch it into syllables and just do the 2nd syll. You may get it right away, or you may not. It's also very common for the first ng to revert to our native 'n' sound. Keep working at it until you unlearn it and can say what you know you can say.

Next, tweak the exercise so that you're speaking more vernacularly and say bringin'. The second 'i' sound should actually be that of our schwa as is the 'u' in 'but' for example. And is the vowel sound you hear between p and l in that very word 'exam - pull.' Just making a point. Anyway, repeat the exercise of clearly getting into saying the word 'bringin,' and try to break it distinctly into bri + ngin, or bree + ngoen if you will. If you do it right, you will more or less be saying ngoen, the Thai word for money (silver), a common word that tons of Farang can't say. This isn't traditional but believe me, having a way to wrap your head around it from your English speaking perspective really helps. You are simply trained since childhood that it can't appear in the front of a word. And so there's some disconnect between brain and mouth about it. But you can do it if you start to trick yourself. From there you just fine tune the consonant and vowel length and you'll be fine. Some may wanna mock me, but I have produced results in the "I'll never speak Thai" group. Some can just do it, others it takes as many approaches and understandings as possible until the right thing clicks. Good Luck.

[appleman]

JG harris, a renowned phonetician of the Thai language has done a lot of research on the states of the glottis using fiber optic cameras. Most of his stuff is quite detailed and technical but if you want pictures then that is where to go. Do a search on Goggle for "Jimmy Harris phonetics". I believe he has a number of publications available from Chulalongkorn University. I studied phonetics with him and he knows his stuff.

The initial "ng" sound is not one we have in English and is one of the hardest sounds for us to learn. Here is a trick to pronouncing the initial "ng" sound. Say the words "singing-a-song". Say "singing" very slowly, pausing at the second syllable and connect it to the "a". You will get "singing-a". Cut out the "sing" part and you get "ing-a". At that point you will feel where your tongue is in respects to your soft palate. Now take away the "in" part and you are left in "ng-a". You should now know exactly what your mouth needs to do to make this sound.

Lots of luck with the ng sound.