In your native language you may nasalise (= put air through nose) vowels when they are followed by /m/, /n/, or /ŋ/. In English, the vowel is not nasalised very much.
How to do it:
1. Choose a word – like ban /ban/. Now take away the nasal consonant and say it: ba /ba/ 2. Touch the middle of your nose. Say /ba/ and notice that there is no (or very little) vibration. 3. Now say the nasal consonant n /n/. Notice that you can feel a lot more vibration. 4. Say the full word. Check that the /ba/ has no (or very little) vibration and the /n/ does have vibration. a. You may feel vibration towards the end of the vowel just before the /n/.
5. It will help to imagine the vowel separated from the following nasal consonant: ban → ba n /ba n/. 6. Now nasalise the vowel completely and feel the difference: more vibration in your nose. a. Notice how the sound is darker when nasalised and brighter when not.
Now practise with the following sentences. You may find some vowels are easier than others.
/iː/ vowel like in FLEECE Roisin* was keen to deem her boss needlessly mean as she talked to her team. */’rəʊʃi:n/ What the dream means isn’t clear: it seemed as if we ate lean green beans – which is a weird cuisine.
/ɪ/ vowel like in KIT Linda’s indicated that she’s had interest in the printing industry since last spring. The singing group for single women just eats Finnish food for dinner in the winter.
/ԑ/ vowel like in DRESS When Jenny presented at the Centre, she was pleased that many men attended. Anyway, Ben’s meant to send 20-70% of his stock to the business by the Thames.
/a/ vowel like in TRAP At Canterbury Cathedral, the family nanny frantically ran with the pram to avoid the van. Andrew and Anthony hadn’t got the hang of how to manage the Manchester-based brand effectively.
