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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