The Nasal Sounds
As it happens in Spanish, English has three voiced nasal consonants. The most important difference is that the velar N in Spanish is not a phoneme, but an allophonic difference for the alveolar N. In other words, each nasal sound is an independent phoneme in English.
How are nasal sounds produced? Nasals are produced with a complete closure of the oral cavity. The velum leads and allows the airstream release through the nasal cavity.
There are three members in this group:
1. the voiced bilabial nasal or /m/,
2. the voiced alveolar nasal or /n/, and
3. the voiced velar nasal or /ŋ/.
Velar Nasal
These sounds cannot be classified as having sister sounds. And that is because none of them have a voiceless counterpart. We can state that nasal phonemes are always voiced in English.
Bilabial Nasal
In terms of sound production difficult, it can be said that the velar N is the one that has more trouble for Spanish speakers to use as an independent phoneme. Emphasis needs to be given to the contrastive difference between the alveolar and the velar N.
Alveolar Nasal
On the other hand, the bilabial nasal can have some pronunciation problems when found in final position. There is a tendency of Spanish speakers to pronounce /m/-sounds in final position as if they were /n/-sounds or /ŋ/-sounds.
| Sound | Spanish | English |
| /m/ | voiced bilabial | voiced bilabial |
| /n/ | voiced alveolar | voiced alveolar |
| /ŋ/ | voiced velar | voiced velar |
| /ɲ/ | voiced palatal | |
