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I'm a beginner and am learning from CD (Pimsleur). There are two native
speakers going through the dialogue. One, the man, pronounces が as I would
expect - 'ga'. The other (female) pronounces it as 'nga'.

How common is the latter? Which should I used? Is the usage split along
gender, age or geographic lines?
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particles pronunciation particle-が
Pronouncing が as 'nga'
"Ga" and "Nga" are same in Japanese, just a personal difference. Some used to
say that old Japanese people used "Nga" more frequently than "Ga"
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2011-06-01T01:44:12.947
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I mostly agree with YOU in that it is personal preference and perhaps more of
a broad preference that may be more prevalent in different parts of Japan.
I've also noticed that the "nga" pronunciation seems more common when が is
spoken in places such as ですが where it often sounds something like desu-nga. In
terms of a slightly more formal reference the English Wiktionary describes the
Japanese [particle が](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%8C#Japanese) is
given the IPA of /ɡa/ which only confirms that although nga may appear in
actual usage, "ga" is probably the more proper pronunciation.

As a side note, it's interesting to see that there also seems to be a form of
the が particle pronunciation popular in Okinawa that is [referred to as
ぎゃ](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%8E%E3%82%83) at least by Wikictionary
which I had never heard of prior to looking it up. The IPA pronunciation is
listed as /ɡja/ and since I'm not a linguist I'm not able to confirm what this
actually sounds like. Perhaps somebody with IPA background could confirm
whether that comes out to be anything close to "nga" and if so maybe it
explains a little bit of the variance in pronunciation of this particle.
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2011-06-01T02:06:29.127
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Ga and Nga are different, just like pronouncing を as "O" or "Wo". Saying Ga or
O in this case is perfectly acceptable. However, the more correct
pronunciation is Nga and Wo.

> "nga" pronunciation seems more common when が is spoken in places such as ですが
> where it often sounds something like desu-nga

I have suspicion that Ga and Nga used to be two different characters and have
become one written character over the years. But don't quote me on that.
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A late answer, but I thought I'd throw it in anyway. As the others have said,
they are allophones and mostly interchangeable. When I moved to Tokyo, I
immediately noticed this sound. The strange thing was that getting other
Japanese people to hear the difference was very difficult and it took some
effort to find out what was going on. Apparently most are oblivious to the
difference.

One thing I found very interesting was that the two pronunciations are (very)
occasionally distinguished using a handakuten. i.e. nga = か゜. See for example
[this article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakuten).
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2011-11-16T06:27:14.487
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Here's the English equivalents for the IPA:  

[ɡ] = the 'g' in 'get'  
[ŋ] = the 'ng' in 'sing'  

The main difference is that [ŋ] is a [nasal
consonant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_consonant), whereas [ɡ] is not.
If you try plugging your nose and pronouncing [ŋ], you'll realize that it's
not possible. That's because air must flow through the nasal passage, but not
the oral passage, for [ŋ]. The simplest answer to your question is that [ŋ]
can optionally replace [ɡ] only in the _middle_ of the word or compound ([An
Introduction to Japanese Linguistics. Tsujimura,
2013](http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1444337734.html)), so
for example:

  * ごま (sesame seeds) can be only [ɡoma]
  * 下駄 (garden clogs) can be only [ɡɛta]
  * 庭下駄 (garden clogs) can be either /niwaɡɛta/ or /niwaŋɛta/
  * 縞柄 (stripped pattern) can be either /ɕimaɡaɾa/ or /ɕimaŋaɾa/

Words and phrases cannot start with a [ŋ]. Since [ɡ]→[ŋ] is optional, speakers
are divided into 3 obvious categories:

  * Speakers who never use [ŋ]
  * Speakers who always use [ŋ] (when it is possible)
  * Speakers who sometimes use [ŋ]

A study in 1941 showed that each category was equally about 30% out of 70
middle-school students (Nihongo no Hensen. Kindaichi, 1967). Generally older
speakers use [ŋ] more and younger speakers less. In fact, here is a graph of
that relationship:  

![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mv1Lu.jpg)  
This graph comes from the paper [Variationist Sociolinguistics in The Handbook
of Japanese
Linguistics](http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631234944_chunk_g97806312349446)
(download
[here](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84340191/Variationist%20Sociolinguistics.zip)).
Also, here is a map of the distribution:  
![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rytN.png)  
It's a high-res map so to actually see it, you can download the original
[here](https://www.ninjal.ac.jp/s_data/drep/laj_map/LAJ_001.pdf). But
basically the pink is [ɡ] and the green is [ŋ]. This map comes from a survey
done by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics and you
can find more maps like it
[here](https://www.ninjal.ac.jp/publication/catalogue/laj_map/map1/).
Generally [ŋ] is more prestigious than [ɡ] and a little bit of history
explains why:

> \- Before World War II, it was an emphasized point of elementary school
> education that /g/ should be realized as [ŋ] in non-initial position. Today,
> many trained television and radio broadcasters use non-initial [ŋ].  
> \- In early nineteenth-century literature (Ukiyoburo written by Shikitei
> Samba), it is specifically mentioned that speakers in Edo had the nasal
> word-internally [ŋ] while rural speakers had the plosive [g]  
> \- The results of these analyses, along with the earlier findings and
> observations, show that the change of word-internal [g] to [ŋ] in Tokyo
> Japanese originated in yamanote in the early twentieth century and has
> spread to the entire Tokyo speech community.

Also, there is no significant difference in usage by gender. As for the future
trend:

> An overall increase in the use of word-internal [g] in the vernacular is
> observed over several decades. The change is near completion, and the word-
> internal [ŋ] has been replaced by [g] at a very rapid rate within three
> generations.

So, [ŋ] is moribund (becoming extinct) at least in the areas major of Japan.
As a JSL student you'd prolly be better off just forgetting it even exists.
Besides all that, there's a bunch of interesting details and exceptions
regarding the [ɡ]/[ŋ] alternation, but that's prolly best left to a separate
question on its own.
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I'm a native Japanese speaker, and I definitely can't tell the difference
between g and ng. I grew up in the Kanto region, and I'm not sure if I use the
g and the ng interchangeably or not. I might know how to pronounce the ng, I'm
not sure.

But anyway, how you make a sound in Japanese isn't as important as using the
correct intonation, which might be difficult for non-native speakers. A native
Japanese speaker focuses more on the intonation, which might be why the native
speakers find trouble discerning between each different sounds. Depending on
the intonation, the word _kumo_ could be interpreted as either a spider, or a
cloud. Again, this depends on the dialect... So _kumo_ spoken in a Kansai
dialect could be said to mean a spider, but to a Tokyo dialect speaker it
could be taken to mean a cloud.

Most native Japanese speakers can't tell the difference between z/s and th, l
and r, n and ng, s and sh (except for す).
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