IPA Translator online

Jennifer   Wednesday, December 08, 2004, 00:00 GMT
Hello everyone,
I need to translate a short text from English into IPA symbols. Since I don't want to do it myself, I would like to find an IPA Translator online. I don't know if one you could help me!
Thank you
Jennifer
Jim   Wednesday, December 08, 2004, 00:49 GMT
Since the IPA is a phonetic alphabet the way you transcribe* Engilsh into the IPA depends on your accent. If you find such an online transcriber, you'll want to be sure that it's transcribing things in your desired accent. Sorry I've not been of any greater help. I don't know of any such online transcriber: I'd rather do it myself (one of the reasons is what I've explained above).

* The word is "transcribe" not "translate" because it's just a different writing system not a different language.
Mxsmanic   Thursday, December 09, 2004, 04:54 GMT
You can use pronunciations from a dictionary that uses the IPA to generate a rough phonemic transcription, although that's not completely automated.

Phonemic transcriptions are very similar across all variants of standard English. More narrow phonetic transcriptions show far greater differences. I've never heard of a computerized system for generating "typical" transcriptions, but such a thing is certainly technically possible.

How long is the text? You could post it online somewhere and ask for volunteers. As Jim says, though, the exact transcription can depend enormously on which English pronunciation is used as a pronunciation reference.