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International Phonetic Alphabet for English
Symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet as used for English.
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, an IPA transcription for bean could be .
Abbreviations below:
English 'plain' vowels
- bead – close front unrounded vowel
- bid – near-close near-front unrounded vowel
- bayed – diphthong: AmE & BrE close-mid front unrounded vowel + near-close near-front unrounded vowel, AuE near-open front unrounded vowel + near-close near-front unrounded vowel 2
- bed – AmE & BrE open-mid front unrounded vowel, AuE close-mid front unrounded vowel
- bad – near-open front unrounded vowel 3
- father – AmE & BrE open back unrounded vowel, AuE open front unrounded vowel
- AmE [ɑ], BrE [ɑː], AuE [aː]
- body – AmE open back unrounded vowel, BrE & AuE open back rounded vowel 4
- baud – open-mid back rounded vowel 4
- bud – open-mid back unrounded vowel
- bode – diphthong: AmE close-mid back rounded vowel + near-close near-back rounded vowel, BrE schwa + near-close near-back rounded vowel, AuE open-mid back unrounded vowel + near-close near-back rounded vowel
- AmE [oʊ], BrE [əʊ], AuE [ʌʊ]
- good – near-close near-back rounded vowel
- booed – close back rounded vowel
Notes:
- 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. The distinction between long and short vowels is more pronounced in British and Australian English than in American English (where many researchers do not transcribe any length for vowels at all).
- 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.
- Many AmE speakers (particularly in and around Philadelphia and New York City) have an additional phoneme in this region, the "raised" or "tense short a". The exact pronunciation of this sound varies widely; it can be realized as any of [æ˔], [ɛə], [eə], [ɪə]. Some speakers have minimal pairs such as can (tin container) [kɛən] vs. can (be able) [kæn] or nonrhyming pairs such as mannish [mɛənɪʃ] vs. Spanish [spænɪʃ]. For most such speakers [ɛə] occurs also before [ɹ] in words like bared and Mary--though usually not marry [mæɹi] or merry [mɛɹi]. Many other American speakers, particularly in a swath from upstate New York to Chicago, whose speech has undergone the northern cities vowel shift, have only a single /æ/ phoneme, whose realization is virtually the same as the Philadelphia/New York "tense short a". Most Americans from the West agree with English speakers from other countries in having only one /æ/ phoneme, whose realization is a lax [æ].
- For a large number of speakers of North American English, there is no distinction between [ɑ] and [ɔ]. This is frequently called the cot-caught merger. For many of these speakers, the two vowels have merged as [ɑ]; for others they have merged as [ɔ]. Among American speakers who do have [ɔ], it is distinctly more open than in British and Australian English; it could also be transcribed [ɒ], though in practice this is rarely done.
These are vowels that occur in unstressed syllables.
- Note: some speakers do not have a contrast between barred-i and schwa.
- Rosa's – This sound is called schwa
- runner – AmE - this is called an r-colored schwa, which is a single sound, not a sequence of schwa and r. BrE & AuE - this is just the reduced vowel schwa.
- button – This is called syllabic n.
- bottle – This is called syllabic l.
- open pronounced "opm" – rapid speech only. This is called syllabic m.
These are plain vowels that are followed by r.
- bird
- beard
- AmE [iɹ], BrE [ɪə], AuE [ɪː]
- beer
- marry *
- merry *
- Mary * / bared
- AmE [ɛɹ], BrE [ɛə], AuE [eː]
- bard
- AmE [ɑɹ], BrE [ɑː], AuE [aː]
- board
- boor
- AmE [ʊɹ], BrE [ʊə], AuE [ɔː]
- Often [ɔː] in BrE
- After palatals (for example in sure, jury, cure, Europe) often [ɝ] in AmE
- byre
- AmE [aɪɚ], BrE [aɪə], AuE [ɑeə]
- Bauer
- AmE [aʊɚ], BrE [aʊə], AuE [æʊə]
Notes
* For many speakers of American English, all or some of [æ], [ɛ], and [e] are merged before [ɹ]. That is, merry, marry, and/or Mary are homophones. The vowel is pronounced as [ɛɹ]. For speakers of British English, these sequences are just the plain vowel, with [ɹ] beginning the next syllable. For some speakers of Australian English the sequences in merry and Mary are homophones.
Also note that speakers with the [ɑ]/[ɔ] merger usually still pronounce the vowel in core as [ɔɹ].
It was formerly widespread in AmE (and still is to some extant in Ireland and generally in Scotland) to have a phonemic contrast between [ɔɹ] in words like north, cord, horse, war and [oɹ] in words like force, board, hoarse, wore.
Diphthongs are vowel sounds that smoothly glide from one vowel to another.
- bide
- Boyd
- bowed, mouth
- imbued
- This is phonemically a sequence of /j/ and /uː/ rather than a diphthong, because English speakers perceive ewe [juː] and two [tuː] as a valid rhyme, and they say "a ewe" instead of "an ewe", which would be correct if [juː] was a vowel.
The voiceless stops [p], [t], and [k] are aspirated when they occur at the beginning of stressed or word-initial 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.
Affricates are phonetically just a sequence of a stop and a fricative.
A distinction is made in English between affricates and a sequence of a stop and fricative, because a syllable boundary never separates those affricates, but it might separate stop/fricative sequences. The contrast can be heard in the phrases why choose, in which [tʃ] is an affricate, and white shoes, in which it is a sequence of the stop [t] and the fricative [ʃ]. The combined letters for affricates, ʧ and ʤ are preferred when available in order to distinguish them from stop/fricative sequences, but not commonly used.
Note: the th in thigh and thy are different sounds. The latter is voiced, the former is voiceless.
Some linguists consider [h] a glide rather than a fricative.
Note: eng only occurs postvocalically (after vowels) in English.
Approximants
Approximants are smooth sounds that are almost like vowels.
- It is frequently written [r] in transcription of English, since the alveolar trill (the sound for which [r] is normally reserved) does not occur in most dialects of English.
Note: [w] and [j] are also called semivowels.
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.
- primary stress
- secondary stress
- syllable break
Quick reference chart of IPA symbols used for English
The symbols in the following chart are arranged in alphabetical order according the English letter they most resemble. This should make symbols easy to find for those who are not familiar with phonetic terminology. Only symbols found in broad (phonemic) transcription are used. The HTML code for numeric entities for the Unicode code is given (in decimal) for those symbols not in Basic Latin.
| Symbol | Numeric entities | Example words | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| aː | aː | father, start | | AuE |
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| aɪ | aɪ | price, high, try | AmE | | BrE
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| aʊ | aʊ | mouth, now | AmE | | BrE
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| æ | æ | trap, bad | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| æɪ | æɪ | face, day, steak | | AuE |
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| æʊ | æʊ | mouth, now | | AuE |
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| ɑ | ɑ | father, start, lot, odd | AmE | |
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| ɑː | ɑː | father, start | | | BrE
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| ɑe | ɑe | price, high, try | | AuE |
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| ɒ | ɒ | lot, odd, wash | | AuE | BrE
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| b | | back, bubble, job | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ɔ | ɔ | thought, law, north, four | AmE | |
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| ɔː | ɔː | thought, law, north, four | | AuE | BrE
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| ɔɪ | ɔɪ | choice, boy | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| d | | day, ladder, odd | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| dʒ or ʤ | dʒ or ʤ | judge, age, soldier | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ð | ð | this, other, smooth | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| e | | dress, bed | | AuE |
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| eː | eː | square, fair, various | | AuE |
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| eɪ | eɪ | face, day, steak | AmE | | BrE
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| ə | ə | about, comma, common | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| əʊ | əʊ | goat, show, no | | | BrE
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| ɚ or ər | ɚ or ər | father, standard | AmE | |
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| ɛ | ɛ | dress, bed | AmE | | BrE
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| ɛə | ɛə | square, fair, various | | | BrE
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| ɜː | ɜː | nurse, stir | | AuE | BrE
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| ɝ or ɜr | ɝ or ɜr | nurse, stir, courage | AmE | |
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| f | | fat, coffee, rough, physics | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| g | | get, giggle, ghost | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| h | | hot, whole, behind | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| i or iː | i or iː | fleece, sea, happy, radiation | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ɪ | ɪ | kit, bid, hymn, basic | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ɪː | ɪː | serious, feared | | AuE |
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| ɪə | ɪə | near, here | | AuE | BrE
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| j | | yet, beyond, onion | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| k | | key, clock, school | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| l | | light, valley, feel | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| m | | more, hammer, sum | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| n | | nice, know, funny, sun | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ŋ | ŋ | ring, long, thanks, sung | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| oʊ | oʊ | goat, show, no | AmE | |
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| θ | θ | thing, author, path | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| p | | pen, copy, happen | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| r or ɹ | r or ɹ | right, sorry, arrange | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| s | | soon, cease, sister | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ʃ | ʃ | ship, sure, station | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| t | | tea, tight, button | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| tʃ or ʧ | tʃ or ʧ | church, match, nature | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| u or uː | u or uː | goose, two, influence, situation | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ʊ | ʊ | foot, good, put | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ʊə | ʊə | cure, poor, jury | | | BrE
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| ʊə | ʊə | cure, tour | | AuE |
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| v | | view, heavy, move | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ʌ | ʌ | strut, bud, love | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ʌʊ | ʌʊ | goat, show, no | | AuE |
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| w | | wet, away, queen | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ʍ | ʍ | when, which | Some English dialects
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| x | | chutzpah, loch | Foreign words only
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| z | | zero, zone, roses, buzz | AmE | AuE | BrE
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| ʒ | ʒ | pleasure, vision | AmE | AuE | BrE
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Primary stress is indicated by the symbol ˈ (ˈ) before the stressed syllable; secondary stress by the symbol ˌ (ˌ) before the syllable, eg. phonetician AmE [ˌfoʊnəˈtɪʃn̩], BrE [ˌfəʊnəˈtɪʃən], AuE [ˌfʌʊnəˈtɪʃən].
Note: You can hide rows of the above table by placing the following code in your user/monobook.css page.
Replace 'xx' with your ISO locale code (either au, gb or us).
#ipa-table tr { display: none; }
#ipa-table tr.xx,
#ipa-table tr:first-child { display: table-row; }
See also
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