A1 · Framburður · Pronunciation
NG og NK — Pronunciation practice
Spot the letters. Choose the sound. Read the sentence.
Before ng or nk, six Icelandic vowels change their sound — but never their spelling. banki is still written with a, and the a is said like á. Learn the six patterns, then practise them in 100 sentences.
Sound and spelling are different things
Spelling · stafsetning
banki
The letters you write. They never change on this page.
Sound cue · hljóð
á
The vowel sound you say. It is a reading hint, not a new spelling — bánki is wrong.
The chart
How to read it
- The arrow means “say the vowel sound of”, not “change the word”. Keep banki, not bánki; lengi, not leingi.
- i and y share one sound, so both use í. (í and ý are the same vowel sound.)
- á and au are two different sounds. There is no general rule for o — only ö changes here.
- A cue like í is about the quality of the vowel. It does not tell you to make the vowel long.
- This is the common pronunciation. Regional speech varies.
Shuffled practice opens once you have studied the chart.
Reading tips
Look ahead
Before you read a vowel, check the next letters. If you see the vowel plus ng or nk, use the chart.
NG and NK are clusters
Practise ng and nk as sound clusters, not as letter names. The n moves to the back of the mouth to meet the g or k. How they sound also depends on the next sounds and on regional speech, so no single English sound is exact for every word.
Stress helps
Icelandic stresses the first syllable. In these short words that is usually the syllable with the vowel you are looking for.
Your own voice
The drills check whether you know the rule. They cannot hear you. Use Read aloud to practise saying each sentence.
Spot it Finndu stafinn
Two steps, just like reading a real word. 1. Tap the vowel that comes right before ng or nk. 2. Choose the sound it makes. Not scored — take your time.
Chart practice
Type the sound cue for each written vowel. Check one row, or check every row you have filled in — empty rows are left out. Not scored.
Chart drill · 100 questions
Which sound does the marked vowel make? Words come from the sentence bank. a, e, u and ö appear 17 times each; i and y 16 times. Scored separately from the sentences.
New chart drill
Sentences
The same 100 sentences, practised in different ways. Sound and spelling keep separate scores because they test different things.
New practice set
Vocabulary Orðaforði
Word families and phrases from the sentences. Search in Icelandic or English. A few words are stretch vocabulary, here for sound practice. When a sentence says “she” or “he”, that is only the sentence — it says nothing about your own gender.
Results Niðurstöður
Each score only describes the questions in that set. These results do not give a CEFR level or grade your pronunciation.
Delete every saved set, score and read-aloud tick for this lesson on this device? This cannot be undone.