ng

In English, we don't have the "ng" sound. In Indonesian, they do. Lots of it. How does one pronounce the "ng" sound? I can't tell you because ... well, because we don't have it. 

Take the word "Bingung", for instance. One imagines that it would be, in English, something like 'bean-gung'. It's not. It's 'bean' followed by 'ngung'. And I cannot tell you how to say 'ngung'. Because I don't know how to say it myself. 

I tried the word in conversation with my friend, Iadi, the other day. 

"No, no!" he said. "It's not Bean-gung, it's bean-ngung. 

After a bit of practice, I got close enough to satisfy Iadi. However, the next time I uttered the word, we had the same problem. 

"No! No! Ngung!"

Sigh. 

One may add to this that there is a soft 'ng' and a hard 'ng'. Take the words Manga and Mangga. The second one is pretty easy for us. It sounds like 'Mang-Gah'. (As it should). The first ... well, there's that dastardly 'ng' again. Nguh, nguh, nguh. If you say it enough times, you begin to sound like Felix Unger, from the Odd Couple, in the scene where he was trying to clear his sinuses. (If you've seen the movie, you'll know what I mean. Otherwise, never mind).