Even further back in the roof of the mouth, beyond the hard palate, you will find a soft area, which is called the soft palate, or the velum. Sounds produced with the back of the tongue against the velum are called velars. There is a voiceless velar sound, represented by the symbol [k], which occurs not only in kid and kill, but is also the initial sound in car and cold. Despite the variety in spelling, this [k] sound is both the initial and final sound in the words cook, kick and coke.

 The voiced velar sound heard at the beginning of words like go, gun and give is represented by [ɡ]. This is also the final sound in words like bag, mug and, despite the spelling, plague.

 The velum can be lowered to allow air to flow through the nasal cavity and thereby produce another voiced velar, represented by the symbol [ŋ], typically referred to as “angma.” In written English, this sound is normally spelled as the two letters “ng.” So, the [ŋ] sound is at the end of sing, sang and, despite the spelling, tongue. It occurs twice in the form ringing. Be careful not to be misled by the spelling of a word like bang – it ends with the [ŋ] sound only. There is no [ɡ] sound in this word.