Minimal pairs: /n/ and /ŋ/

The velar nasal consonant /ŋ/ is often a challenge for Polish speakers despite the fact that it also exists in Polish. Here are some errors typical of Polish speakers of English:
A. pronouncing the "-ing" sequence (as either a suffix or just part of a larger morpheme) as [-ink] or [-ing] (sometimes [-ink]);
B. pronouncing the vowel preceding /ŋ/ as the Polish "ą" or "ę" (nasal vowels/diphthongs; here I prefer to avoid phonetic transcription of Polish sounds);
C. pronouncing /ŋ/ instead of /n/, e.g. 'Poland', 'and' with "ę" and /ŋ/ (see C. above);
D. mispronouncing "g" in words such as 'singer' vs 'finger'.

To create the exercises, I took a few words from Baker (2006).

Ex. 1 Look at the following words containing the consonant /n/ and find their counterparts containing the consonant /ŋ/.

ban, Dan, done, fan, kin, pin, ran, Ron, run, sin, thin, win, ton

Ex. 2 Look at the following words containing the consonant /ŋ/ and find their counterparts containing the consonants /ŋk/.

bang, bring, dung, king, ping, ring/wring, rang, sing, sting, thing, wing


KEY

1. bang, dang, dung, fang, king, ping, rang, wrong, rung/wrung, sing, thing, wing, tongue
2. bank, brink, dunk, kink, pink, rink, rank, sink, stink, think, wink

Baker, Ann. 2006. Ship or Sheep? An intermediate pronunciation course. 3rd ed. Cambridge: CUP.