Home: How to learn English: Pronunciation: Sounds of English & International Phonetic Alphabet

The sounds of English and the International Phonetic Alphabet

This table contains all the sounds (phonemes) used in the English language. For each sound, it gives:

• The symbol in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), as used in phonetic transcriptions in modern dictionaries for English learners — that is, A. C. Gimson's phonemic system with a few additional symbols.

  The table represents British and American phonemes with one symbol. One symbol can mean two different phonemes in American and British English. See the footnotes for British-only and American-only symbols.

• Two English words which use the sound. The underline shows where the sound is heard.
• The links labeled Amer and Brit play sound recordings (in mp3 format) where the words are pronounced in American and British English. The British version is given only where it is very different from the American version.

If you would like to print the table, use the pretty printable version.

vowels IPA words listen   cup, luck Amer   arm, father Amer / Brit   cat, black Amer   met, bed Amer 1 away, cinema Amer 2 turn, learn Amer / Brit 2 hit, sitting Amer   see, heat Amer   hot, rock Amer / Brit 3 call, four Amer / Brit 4 put, could Amer   blue, food Amer   five, eye Amer   now, out Amer   go, home Amer 5 where, air Amer / Brit 6 say, eight Amer   near, here Amer / Brit 6 boy, join Amer   pure, tourist Amer / Brit 6

consonants IPA words listen bad, lab Amer did, lady Amer find, if Amer give, flag Amer how, hello Amer yes, yellow Amer cat, back Amer leg, little Amer man, lemon Amer no, ten Amer sing, finger Amer pet, map Amer red, try Amer sun, miss Amer she, crash Amer tea, getting Amer check, church Amer think, both Amer this, mother Amer voice, five Amer wet, window Amer zoo, lazy Amer pleasure, vision Amer just, large Amer

1	The phoneme is sometimes written as (do not confuse with ) in American sources to show that in AmE, the pronunciation falls between and .
2	In and , the is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes before a vowel (as in answering, answer it). In AmE, the is always pronounced, and the sounds are sometimes written as and .
3	In AmE, is pronounced instead of . This is so obvious that we don't need to provide separate transcriptions for AmE and BrE.
4	Many Americans pronounce () and in the same way.
5	has been traditionally written as in British sources. Today, is probably more appropriate for both BrE or AmE.
6	In , the is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes before a vowel (as in dearest, dear Ann). In AmE, the is always pronounced, and the sounds are often written as () .

special symbols

IPA	what it means
	The apostrophe symbol () is used to show word stress. Usually, it is placed before the stressed syllable in a word. For example, // is pronounced like this, and // like that. Word stress is explained in our article about phonetic transcription.
	is not a sound — it is a short way of saying that an is pronounced only in American English. For example, if you write that the pronunciation of bar is //, you mean that it is // in American English, and // in British English. However, in BrE, will be heard if is followed by a vowel. For example, far gone is pronounced / / in BrE, but far out is pronounced / /.
	("medium i") means that you can pronounce or or something in between — a sound that is short like but sounds like . Examples: very //, create //, previous //, ability //.
	("syllabic l") shows that the consonant is pronounced as a separate syllable (it sounds like vowel). Examples: little //, uncle //. Instead of the symbol, some dictionaries use // or //.
	("syllabic n") shows that the consonant is pronounced as a separate syllable (it sounds like a vowel). Examples: written //, listen //. Instead of the symbol, some dictionaries use or .

What this page actually presents

This page contains symbols used in phonetic transcriptions in modern dictionaries for English learners. It does not list all the possible sounds that exist in English. For example, it does not list the "regular t" (heard in this pronunciation of letter) and the "flap t" (heard in this one) separately. It groups them under a single . (In other words, it groups a number of sounds under a single "phoneme". To understand how sounds are grouped into phonemes, read the article on phonemic transcription.)

Even though dictionaries represent each phoneme with one symbol of the IPA, you should remember that one phoneme can actually correspond to many IPA symbols. For example, the phoneme in pin would be phonetically written with the IPA symbol , because it is pronounced with aspiration (breathing). In spin, the same phoneme would be written with a simple (no aspiration). Similarly, the "regular t" and the "flap t" have separate IPA symbols — and , respectively.

In other words, this page does not list all the possible IPA symbols that describe English speech. Also note that the IPA contains symbols for many languages — not only English.

The ASCII Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet is very popular, but there is a big problem with this alphabet: the IPA symbols are difficult to type on computers. Because of this, we've created the ASCII Phonetic Alphabet. It uses only symbols which you can type on your computer's keyboard.

Learning to pronounce the sounds

We offer software (PerfectPronunciation) which teaches learners to pronounce the most frequently used English words. It lets you listen to examples of English sounds, practice your pronunciation, and review your knowledge. PerfectPronunciation uses the ASCII Phonetic Alphabet.