Do you know how to correctly pronounce the letter 'g' at the end of words in English? For many English learners, it's quite a challenge. Get ready to overcome it with these guided exercises with the help of audio.
How to pronounce the 'g' at the end of words
Did you know that New York is called “The Big Apple”? Yes, it’s sort of a nickname1 for that big city, where you can see big streets and big buildings, eat Big Mac burgers and do big business. We often hear that in America everything is BIG!
Section one: spotting the problem
I’m going to read out four words the way I often hear my students pronounce them. Listen to how I pronounce the letter 'g' this time.
The letter 'g' in these words should be pronounced as /g/, but students often say /x/ or /k/ instead, as you've just heard on the recording. In Spanish there are no words ending in /g/, and it’s difficult to get it right for learners of English. Now listen to these four words:
- bigger
- leggings
- doggy
- blogger
Well, no problems here. Students can say the /g/ in these words perfectly. But why? It’s because they come inside a word, not at the end.
Now listen closely. I reduced the speed of the following recording to give you time to actually hear the /g/ sound in a word-ending position:
As you can hear, the letter ‘g’ is in fact pronounced as /g/. There is a very short /ə/ vowel sound at the end to give it resonance, because the /g/ is a voiced consonant. This is the key to solving this problem.
Section two: correcting the problem
Now we’re going to do what actors often do when they practise: we’re going to exaggerate. We're going to say a longer /ə/ sound to finish the words, much longer than it really sounds like in speech. Repeat each word after me:
Repeat the words this way a few more times to grasp the idea. Now let’s practise the same words, but let us start reducing the length of the /ə/ vowel sound until it is really short, but still pronounced. Listen to what you need to do:
Section three: practice
In this part, in each example, first you will hear a short sentence, then some words from it, and finally a word ending in /g/. Practise them in this order, after the beep. Make sure your word ending in /g/ sounds voiced, just the way you learned it in the previous section. Be careful not to say /x/ or /k/.
- This flat is bigger ➡️ is bigger/ɪz'bɪgə/ ➡️ big
- Mom, I want a doggy! ➡️ want a doggy/ə'dogɪ/ ➡️ dog
- She bought a pair of leggings ➡️ a pair of leggings ➡️ leg
- Are you a regular blogger? ➡️ a regular blogger ➡️ blog
Section four: memorize
Now listen to the following examples and practise each one as a pair, i.e. first say sentence A and then sentence B after it. Pronounce the words with /g/ in column A linked to the sound that follows as indicated in the phonetic transcript. Remember to make the /g/ voiced in the words in column B.
COLUMN A | COLUMN B |
My bag is heavy/bæ'gɪz/ | Here’s my bag /gə/. It’s not heavy. |
What a big apple! /bɪ'gæpl/ | Wow! Isn’t that apple big /gə/! |
There’s a frog in the pool! /frɒ'gɪnðə/ | That’s not a frog /gə/ |
Put your leg over your head/le'gəʊvə/ | My leg?/gə/I can't!/ |
Let the dog in, please. /dɒ'gɪn / | Nice dog /gə/ here, sit...sit. |