How to Pronounce the /m/ Sound 

How to Pronounce the /m/ Sound

In this lesson, we are going to learn about how we can produce the /m/ sound with the appropriate articulatory organs.

What Type of Sound Is /m/?

/m/ is a consonant sound in the English language.

How to Produce /m/?

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As you can see in the picture (a), the lips are simply put on each other, just like when we want to be silent and keep our mouths closed. If you take a look at picture (b), the tongue remains in its place and does not participate in the production of this sound. The circle in the throat is red which indicates that the vocal cords play a part here; so, it is voiced. To produce this sound, we close our mouths and start vibrating our vocal cords, making a humming tune. As you can see in picture (b), the uvula has not blocked the air passage. So, the air goes up and comes out from the nose. That is the reason we call this sound "nasal."
In picture (c), you can see clearly that no parts of the mouth make contact with the tongue. So, it clarifies that the mouth and the tongue do not participate in the production of the /m/ sound.

Which Letters are Pronounced as /m/?

The sound /m/ is represented by the following letters:

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m:

Example

mind /maɪnd/

marvelous /mɑr·və·ləs/

seem /siːm/

album /æl.bəm/

mm:

Example

common /ˈkɑ.mən/

summary /ˈsʌməɹi/

/m/ Sound in the Most Common Languages

As you can see in the table below, all of the common languages spoken around the globe have the /m/ sound. So, you can easily learn to produce it in English. Take look below:

Existence

Example

Mandarin

貓 (māo)

Spanish

grumete

Hindi

मधु

Bengali

মা

Portuguese

mato

Russian

муж

Japanese

豆 (mame)

Vietnamese

muối

Turkish

benim

French

manger

German

Maus

Italian

mamma

Persian

مادر

Standard Arabic

مطابخ

Korean

마을

Indonesian

masuk

Filipino

manok

Hungarian

ma

Dutch

mond

Polish

masa

Romanian

mic

Swedish

mask

Czech

muž

Greek

μάζα

Ukrainian

молоко

Urdu

مکان

Listening

Below, there is an audio file that helps you learn the proper pronunciation of the /m/ sound:

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