12. / n ŋ /

Consonant                 / n /          [ n ]          153

“Oh, no!  The wind is blowing on and on,”                                    

laments Noh-on, the farmer.

He has never seen the wind blowing

in this manner.

It has been blowing for almost a month.

The crops he has grown just sways

and bends so much.

Noh-on and Hon-on, his wife are nervous and upset.

They wonder if the wind would ever stop again (/əˈgeIn/)

and come back to normal.

If the wind blows in this manner once in a while,

it could be fun, for sure.

You certainly could enjoy the windy (/ˈwIndI/) day.

You could indulge in kite-flying

But this wind is threatening

to his livelihood and good living (/ˈlIvIŋ/).

Remember  the letter “n” in “ng or nk” will change into /ŋ/ speech sound.   When the words that end in “ng” , the phoneme / g / is almost always dropped like [sing, wing, king,  fling, …….].   But for the word “En-glish”, the phoneme / g / sound is articulated in the second syllable “/ˈIŋglIʃ/”.

Consonants            / n  ŋ /          [n | ng, nk]                154

Sean enjoys swimming in a river.

He always brings along his swimming trunks.

When he swims,

he always clings to a square board.

He wishes he would swim all day long

and far beyond.

When he is tired with swimming,

he would rest under a tree beside a tank.

He would like to wander

along the bank with his family.

They always look out for wasps (/wɒsps/)

as the sting of them can be fatal

and can cause so much pain.