/IPA/
International Phonetic Alphabet /IPA/:
I am sure that the title sounds scary enough to make quit, but believe me that learning the International Phonetic Alphabet -aka IPA- is more simple than you thing. Actually, and I can tell you based on my personal experience since I am not a native-English speaker, in the way you learn to pronounce the words properly you will dramatically improve your listening too! (one of the weaknesses of English becuase it is spoken in such fast a pace that the non-native speakers hardly can catch a couple words when a native spekaer speaks to them).
So, don't be affraid. All that you need is to relax and think that English is spoken by human beings, just like you, so you can speak it too!
- The first difficulty is the fact that there are as many IPA as Dictionaries! This is terrible because we seem to be before hundreds of symbols. The truth is that we are only before between 21 and 25 symbols for the Consonants (again, depending on the Dictionary) and between 14 and 16 symbols for the Vowels (this is funny becuase we tend to think that the English only has 5 vowels:"a, e, i, o, u" but it turns out that each one of them has 2 sounds, so , as you can see that comes down to 10 vowel sounds plus the Diphthong ones (you know, two vowels togheter)
- The British dictionaries use slightly different symbols than the American ones. However, keep in mind that they REPRESENT THE SAME SOUND! This is what you must learn: to produce the right sound. Once you do it you will be amazed to realized that you can actually catch more and more words when listening English
- The International Phonetic Alphabet should be written between slashes like these: "/ /"
-
Symbol Keyword
/i/ beat, feed
/I/ bit, did
/eI/ date, paid
/E/ bet, bed
/{/ bat, bad
/A/ box, odd, father
/O/ bought, dog
/oU/ boat, road
/U/ book, good
/u/ boot, food, student
Symbol Keyword
/E but, mud, mother
/@/ banana, among
/E shirt, murder
/aI/ bite, cry, buy, eye
/aU/ about, how
/OI/ voice, boy
/Ir/ beer
/Er/ bare
/Ar/ bar
/Or/ door
Symbol Keyword
/Ur/ tour
Consonants
Symbol Keyword
/p/ pack, happy
/b/ back, rubber
/t/ tie
/d/ die
/k/ came, key, quick
/g/ game, guest
/tS/ church, nature, watch
/dZ/ judge, general, major
/f/ fan, photograph
/v/ van
Symbol Keyword
/T/ thing, breath
/D/ then, breathe
/s/ sip, city, psychology
/z/ zip, please, goes
/S/ ship, machine, station, special, discussion
/Z/ measure, vision
/h/ hot, who
/m/ men, some
/n/ sun, know, pneumonia
// sung, ringing
Symbol Keyword
/w/ wet, white
/l/ light, long
/r/ right, wrong
/y/ yes, use, music
// butter, bottle
/t/ button
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