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The symbols of the 'International Phonetic Alphabet' can be used to show pronunciation in 'English'. For a quick chart of how, without the details presented here, see IPA chart for English.
Listeners pay attention to vowels much more than consonants to distinguish between the various regional accents of English speakers. For this reason, the consonants of English are discussed together, while vowels will be explained in three sections: Received Pronunciation, General American, and General Australian.
While the slashes and brackets around IPA symbols are not part of the IPA itself, language professionals have adopted them to distinguish between two main types of transcription, phonemic and phonetic. In phonemic transcriptions, the observer uses slashes to record the phonemes speakers target when they pronounce a word. For example, a phonemic transcription of ''pit'' is . Because there are often a number of ways in which phonemes are produced in speech, observers use brackets to record the sounds that speakers actually produce, the allophones of the phonemes. For example, because English speakers typically aspirate a word-initial and sometimes do not release a word-final , a phonetic transcription of this ''pit'' may look like this: .
The brackets and slashes also clarify that their contents are not normal text, but a transcription. Because some IPA transcriptions can look like another word, the distinction is important. For example, an IPA transcription for ''bean'' could be .

Contents

Consonants

Vowels

Received Pronunciation

Full vowels

Reduced vowels

General American

Full vowels

Reduced vowels

General Australian

Full vowels

Reduced vowels

Suprasegmentals

References

See also

External links

Consonants

The symbols used for consonants are shown in the following table. Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the left is voiceless, the one to the right voiced.

	Bi­labial	Labio- dental	Labio- velar	Den­tal	Alveo­lar	Post- alveo­lar	Pala­tal	Velar	Glot­tal
Stop
Affricate
Nasal
Fricative
Approximant
Lateral approximant

★ : 'p'it ★ : 'b'it ★ : 't'in ★ : 'd'in ★ : 'c'ut ★ : 'g'ut ★ : 'ch'eap ★ : 'j'eep ★ : 'm'ap ★ : 'n'ap ★ : ba'ng' ★ : 'f'at ★ : 'v'at

★ : 'th'in ★ : 'th'en ★ : 's'ap ★ : 'z'ap ★ : 'sh'e ★ : mea's'ure ★ : lo'ch', 'Ch'anukah (often replaced by and , respectively) ★ : 'h'am ★ : 'wh'ine (also written , often replaced by ) ★ : 'w'e ★ : 'r'un (often written in broad transcription) ★ : 'y'es ★ : 'l'eft

Vowels

This section discusses the symbols used for the vowel phonemes in three major English accents.

Received Pronunciation

Main articles: Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation is the prestige British accent, sometimes referred to as ''BBC English''. It is used as the standard in most media within Great Britain.

Full vowels

Full vowels are those that appear in stressed syllables.

Monophthongs	Short			Long
	Front	Back		Front	Central	Back
Close
Mid
Open

★ : b'i'd ★ : g'oo'd ★ : b'e'd (sometimes transcribed ) ★ : b'u'd ★ : b'a't (sometimes transcribed ) ★ : p'o't

★ : b'ea'd ★ : b'oo'ed ★ : b'ir'd (sometimes transcribed ) ★ : b'ough't, b'oar'd ★ : f'a'ther, b'ar'd

Diphthongs	Closing			Centring
	to	to
Starting close
Starting mid
Starting open

★ : b'ay' ★ : b'oy' ★ : t'oe' ★ : b'uy' (sometimes transcribed ) ★ : c'ow'

★ : b'eer' ★ : b'oor' (falling out of use in British English; often replaced by ) ★ : b'ear' (sometimes transcribed )

Reduced vowels

Reduced vowels occur in unstressed syllables.

★ : ros'e's

★ : Ros'a'’s, runn'er'

★ : bott'le'

★ : butt'on'

★ : rhyth'm'

General American

Main articles: General American

General American is the standardized accent of the United States, and is the dialect most commonly used in spoken media there.

Full vowels

Monophthongs	Checked				Free
	Front	Central	Back		Front	Central rhotacized	Back
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open

★ : b'i'd ★ : g'oo'd ★ : b'e'd ★ ★ ★ : b'u'd ★ : b'a'd

★ : b'ea'd ★ : b'oo'ed ★ : b'ay'ed ★ : b'o'de ★ : b'ir'd ★ or : b'ough't ★ : b'o'dy, p'o'd, f'a'ther

Note: the vowels and are usually diphthongal, so the transcriptions and are also often used. ^[1]

Diphthongs	Closing			Rhotacized
	to	to
Starting close
Starting mid
Starting open

★ : b'oy' ★ : b'uy', th'igh' ★ : b'ou't, c'ow'

★ : b'eer', h'ere' ★ : b'oor', man'ure' (often replaced by , sometimes by in American English) ★ : b'ear', 'air' ★ : b'ore' (sometimes phonemicized ) ★ : b'ar'

Reduced vowels

★ : ros'e's (for many Americans merged with )

★ : Ros'a'’s

★ : runn'er'

★ : bott'le'

★ : butt'on'

★ : rhyth'm'

General Australian

Main articles: Australian English phonology

Full vowels

Monophthongs	Short				Long
	Front	Central	Back		Front	Central	Back
Close
Mid
Open

★ : b'i'd ★ : g'oo'd ★ : b'e'd ★ ★ : p'o't ★ : b'a't ★ : b'u'd

★ : b'ea'd ★ : b'oo'ed ★ : b'ar'ed ★ : b'ir'd ★ : b'ough't, b'oar'd ★ : b'a'd ★ : f'a'ther, b'ar'd

Diphthongs	Closing			Centring
	to unrounded	to rounded
Starting close
Starting mid
Starting open

★ : b'oy' ★ : t'oe' ★ : b'ay' ★ : b'uy' ★ : c'ow'

★ : b'eer' ★ : t'our' (falling out of use in Australian English; often replaced by disyllabic or monophthongal )

Reduced vowels

★ : ros'e's, Ros'a'’s, runn'er'

★ : bott'le'

★ : butt'on'

★ : rhyth'm'

Suprasegmentals

The ''suprasegmental'' symbols are called that because they apply to more than one segment (vowel or consonant). In English, the relevant suprasegmentals are the markings for primary and secondary stress.

★ Primary stress:

★ Secondary stress:
Primary stress is indicated by the symbol before the stressed syllable; secondary stress by the symbol before the syllable, for example ''battleship'' .

References

1. Roca, Iggy & Johnson, Wyn (1999). ''Course in Phonology''. Blackwell Publishing.

See also

★ English phonology

★ IPA chart for English

★ SAMPA, X-SAMPA, and Kirshenbaum are methods of mapping IPA designations into ASCII.

★ List of phonetics topics

★ Pronunciation respelling for English

★ NATO phonetic alphabet - also known as the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet or military alphabet. The NATO phonetic alphabet differs from linguistics term phonetic alphabet, and is often confused with International Phonetic Alphabet for English the because of their similar names.

External links

★ LONGMAN Dictionary of Contemporary English ''ONLINE'' uses IPA.

★ Online IPA editor for English

★ Online/Offline IPA editor for English

★ Roman Phonetic Transcription of English

★ IPA transcription systems for English — discussion by John C. Wells of RP transcriptions