Incorrect pronounciation of words ending in "ing"

necromundia

Happy Monday lads,

Would anyone have any suggestions as to how to correct the fact that when I pronounce words such as "sing" and "song" I fail to pronounce the g at the end. I was unaware of this only until a couple of years ago and am horribly self conscious of it since. To be honest listening to myself pronouncing those words i cannot tell the difference. Also I can pronounce words such as king and string no problem according to people that I have asked about it.

Untense

Hello!

A couple of questions:
You mention you can't tell the difference when you pronounce the two words. Do you mean the difference between when you say sing vs song, or the difference between when you say those words and when somebody else says them, or something else entirely?

Secondly, when you think of saying those two words, can you 'hear' the difference in the sound in your mind's ear? Is there a difference between what you hear in your mind's ear versus what you hear when you speak it aloud?

Lastly, again when you are thinking of saying those two words, do you hear if you mentally pronouncing the 'g' sound or not ?

necromundia

Please excuse my phrasing. I meant to describe the fact that I cannot tell the difference between my own pronunciation of the majority of words ending in ing and when other people pronounce those words.

To me there is no difference between hearing those words in my mind's ear versus what I heat when I speak it aloud.

I hear myself mentally pronouncing the g sound. Thanks for the help.

Untense

necromundia wrote: »

Please excuse my phrasing.

No need to apologise, the reason I ask for clarification is because we all have different ways of putting things and I just wanted to be clear what you meant so that I am not going off on a tangent from you.

I meant to describe the fact that I cannot tell the difference between my own pronunciation of the majority of words ending in ing and when other people pronounce those words.

You mention the majority, is that to say there are some words where you can detect a difference in your pronunciation compared to how others pronounce those words?

To me there is no difference between hearing those words in my mind's ear versus what I heat when I speak it aloud.

And another question on this one: Have you heard a recording of yourself when you speak these words? If so, does the recording sound the same or different to how you hear yourself pronounce them in your mind's ear?


-Andrew

necromundia

Thanks for the help Andrew. I personally cannot detect a difference in pronouncing e.g king and string for example, I have just been told by other people that I am pronouncing those words correctly as opposed to the word song for instance.

I shall try and record my pronunciation of these words myself and get back to you soon.

Jonathan

Untense

I have just been told by other people that I am pronouncing those words correctly as opposed to the word song for instance.

It is good to take that as a piece of information in and of itself. It's an indicator that it's not a problem all the time, so you know at the very least it's not something innate and is likely something which may just require a bit of experimenting and exploring with those few words where there isn't a full or clear pronunciation going on.

I shall try and record my pronunciation of these words myself and get back to you soon.

It would be interesting to find out if you do notice a difference. Take your time with this part because if you can pick up on a difference in the recording versus your mind's ear, then you're nearly all the way there.

It might also be worth recording the words with 'ing' you do pronounce accurately alongside the words you apparently do not speak clearly. e.g. "king, string, song". Take your time to correlate whether you're hearing any differences in the words you've recorded with what you have going on in your 'mind's ear' when you think of the word. Anything different?