Velar

Velar nasals in English, like velar plosives, have a range of places of articulation, from rather front (  ) through to rather retracted or back (  ). Velar nasals, however, must follow a vowel (i.e. they are not syllable initial or word initial), and the range of vowels that can precede then is limited: they must be short, and are the vowels of KIT, TRAP, LOT and STRUT. Compare the place of articulation for ‘sing, sang, song, sung’, and they should feel different: probably frontest for ‘sing’, backest for ‘song’, and roughly the same for ‘sang, sung’, depending on the quality you have for these vowels.

The place of articulation of velar plosives is more dependent on the vowel that comes after than before them; and when they occur between vowels, the place of articulation is somewhere between the places of articulation expected for the vowel sounds. The same is roughly true for velar nasals. Compare the place of articulation for ‘singer’ and ‘singing’: you should notice that it is slightly advanced for ‘singing’ as compared to ‘singer’. However well these differences can be felt in production, in perception they are less easy to notice, especially as compared to the various [k] sounds.