International Phonetic Alphabet for English
Symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet.Abbreviations below: AmE = American English; BrE = British English (Received Pronunciation)
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2 Consonants 3 Suprasegmentals 4 IPA examples |
The symbol [ː] is just the IPA symbol that means the vowel to the left is long. The vowels marked here with [ː] are the English vowels that are usually longer than the others.
Note about [ɑ] and [ɔ]: For a large number of speakers of American English, there is no distinction between these vowels. This is called the [ɑ]/[ɔ] merger. For these speakers, all words with [ɔ] are pronounced with [ɑ].
Also note that speakers with the [ɑ]/[ɔ] merger usually still pronounce the vowel in core as [ɔɹ].
Vowels
English 'Plain' vowels
* The English [o] and [e] vowels are realized as diphthongs, but they are included here with the plain vowels because the [ɪ] and [ʊ] are just off-glides.Reduced vowels
These are vowels that occur in unstressed syllables.
Some speakers do not have a contrast between barred-i and schwa.
R-colored vowels
These are plain vowels that are followed by r.
* For many speakers of American English, all or some of [æ], [ɛ], and [e] are merged before [r]. That is, merry, marry, and/or Mary are homophones. The vowel is pronounced as [eɹ]. For speakers of British English, these sequences are just the plain vowel, with [ɹ] beginning the next syllable;Diphthongs
Diphthongs are vowel sounds that smoothly glide from one vowel to another.Consonants
Stops
The voiceless stops, [p], [t], and [k] are aspirated when they occur at the beginning of stressed syllables. Aspiration is marked in IPA with a superscript h. These symbols are thus [pʰ], [tʰ], [kʰ]. It is not always necessary to include the superscript h when transcribing English into IPA because speakers make the distinction automatically.
Nasals
Note that engma only occurs postvocalically (after vowels) in English.Fricatives
Note that the th in thing and this are different sounds. The latter is voiced the former is voiceless.
Affricates
Affricates are a phonetically just sequence of a stop and a fricative.
A distinction is made in English between affricates and a series of a stop and fricative, because a syllable boundary never separates an affricate, but it might separate a stop/fricative sequence.Approximants
Approximants, also called liquids, are smooth sounds that are almost like vowels.
[w] and [j] are also called \glides.
Suprasegmentals
The suprasegmental symbols are called that because they apply to more than one segment, or symbol. In English, the relevant suprasegmentals are the markings for primary and secondary stress.
IPA examples
The square brackets around IPA symbols are not part of the IPA itself, but just serve to indicate that the contents of the brackets are not normal text, but IPA symbols. The distinction is important, as some IPA transcriptions can look like other words. For example, the IPA transcription for bean is [bin].
