Let’s talk about Nasals!
Have you ever had a students who struggle to identify the correct vowels in words like can, man, tan, ring and bank?
Most of my student struggle with this at some point and they’re not to blame! The truth is that nasal consonants do affect the sounds of the vowels preceding them.
It is critical that we take the time to teach students things like mouth formation, tongue position, the difference between voiced and unvoiced sounds. The use of sound walls is a great way to do this.
First, let’s define what a nasal consonant is. Nasal consonants are those which sounds are produced by blocking the air in the mouth and forcing it to exit through the nose.
Look at this image from The Sound of English to better understand.
The 3 Nasal Consonants
The 3 nasal consonants in the English language are m, n, and ng.
In the case of m, the air is blocked by pressing your lips together. One way to show students that the air is coming out through the nose is by asking them to pluck their noses as they try produce the sound… ahh! they’ll quickly notice it’s not possible! Then have them produce the sound as they normally would and explain that because the lips block the air flow in the mouth, it travels up and comes out through the nose.
Another nasal sound is n. In this case, the air is blocked by pressing the tip of your tongue to the alveolar ridge. Ask students to produce the sound, ask “where is your tongue?” They should be able to feel it right behind their upper teeth.
When you ask students where they think the air is coming out, they might say the mouth because the mouth is open but if you ask them to put their hands up to their mouths they will notice that the air is not coming out. Again, the air is coming out though the nose.
The third nasal is ng, the tongue is near the back of your throat and pressed against the soft palette (velar). This is a tricky sound to produce in isolation. It is important to teach kids not to add the /g/ sound at the end.
When reading a word with a nasal consonant, the muscles in the nose and mouth anticipate that the nasal sound is coming and begin to produce the sound WHILE you are pronouncing the vowel.
The vowel preceding the nasal consonant is nasalized meaning that part of the sound is made through passing air through the nose.
Let’s give it a try. Say these 3 words aloud:
- cat
- pan
- rang
All three words contain a short a but notice how the /a/ in cat sounds like the pure short vowel sound /a/ but the other two sound different.
Practice is key! Here are some words that contain nasalized vowels:
– thing – think – rang -song – rung – king – lung- sand – pond – can – ton – pan
I hope this post helped you understand how nasal consonants affect the pronunciation of the vowels preceding it.
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Have a great Week!
Alejandra
