Nasals

Here we have information about nasals. We will define what a nasal is, show you some examples of words that contain a nasal, and even provide audio recordings so that you can listen to these examples, solidifying your overall understanding of nasals.

A sound is classified as a nasal consonant when the soft palate (velum) is lowered, causing air to come out your nose instead of through your oral cavity. Most consonant sounds are orally produced.

Two sounds that are classified as nasals include m and n, which are both notated on the IPA chart of American English consonants.

A couple of examples of words that contain these sounds are “Meat” and “Nag.” Below you can see their IPA transcriptions with the nasal indicated by a color.

We have also recorded these words for your convenience. For each example, you will first hear the pronunciation of the nasal, followed by the word.

Meat = [mit]

Nag = [næg]

More Information

American English IPA Consonants
Go here to view all of the American English IPA consonants in their sound classification chart.

Liquids
Go here to learn about the next type of obstruction on our list.