How to pronounce pong in American English

IPA /pɑŋ/ Syllables 1 · pahng Stress 1st syllable

PAHNG

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Americans pronounce pong as PAHNG (/pɑŋ/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The ping pong paddle has a rubber surface for spin".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "pong".

1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

p/p/

Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.

ah/ɑ/

Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.

ng/ŋ/

Lift the back of your tongue to the soft palate. Lower your soft palate to let air flow through your nose.

In real conversation

Hear "pong" in the wild.

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"The ping pong paddle has a rubber surface for spin."

dhuh PIHNG PAHNG PA·duhl huhz uh RUH·ber SUR·fuhs fer SPIHN

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "pong" different from British English?

American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "PAHNG" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.