Language 321

International Phonetic Alphabet

We have seen that there are a variety of writing systems in use throughout the world, each with
its own set of rules and conventions. Those that attempt to reflect pronunciation, such as alphabetic
writing, rarely if ever succeed in matching exclusively one letter with one phone. English spelling has
many imperfections since one letter may represent a variety of phones while a single phone may be
represented by several different letters. It is thus extremely difficult to study English pronunciation by
referring to how words are spelled.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) allows us to overcome the difficulties of spelling and
pronunciation by establishing a set of symbols that uniquely represent the various phones of English
and all other languages. It is universally applicable since the IPA symbols represent the same phones
regardless of the language in which they appear. You may want to consult the IPA online for a full
listing of phones and their symbols, including those given here for English. As you identify the phones
of your L1, you will begin to notice differences in their articulation compared with those used in
English. The IPA is a useful tool for studying the pronunciation of other languages that you may wish
to learn some day. In fact, many dictionaries include a pronunciation guide of words using the symbols
of the IPA.
The charts that present the English vowel and consonant phones match the IPA symbols with
their articulatory descriptions. In the following exposition, we list these same symbols again along
with sample English words that contain them using standard spelling so that you can see how the IPA
symbols relate to the letters of the normal alphabet. The examples given only show some (but not all)
of the ways to represent these phones in normal writing. Notice that some phones use IPA symbols that
are identical to the letters of the English alphabet used to represent these sounds in standard writing.
However, this does not mean that a word spelled with these letters will always represent these phones,
nor should you conclude that if a word does not use these letters it does not contain these phones. Such
is the difficulty of the English alphabet and spelling system!

IPA symbol Sample words
p top, apple
d dog, raised
f fall, tough
 this, other
 shy, mission
t rich, virtue
 right, merry
m more, lamb
Consonants
IPA symbol Sample words
b ball, rubber
k make, rock
v van, of
s pass, face
 vision, rouge
d joy, large
j young, use
n son, know
IPA symbol Sample words
t sit, missed
g go, soggy
 thin, moth
z rose, zero
h hit, who
l look, mall
w win, quick
 song, tank

Vowels
i see, people  pin, women e rain, great
 tell, said  ask, laugh a hot, father
 coarse, bowl o low, coat  foot, could
u soup, two  cut, some
a high, by a cow, doubt  boy, coin

The vowel phones given in the final line represent diphthongs, sequences of two vowel phones
pronounced together in the same syllable as the tongue position changes quickly from the first vowel to
the second one. Remember, diphthongs combine 2 vowel phones in speech regardless of spelling.