5 Minute Beginners Guide to IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

Have you ever seen those wonky letters under a dictionary definition and wondered? What the heck do those symbols mean? If so you’re in the exact right place. In five minutes, you’ll be on your way to reading those like a pro.

First off, what is IPA?

IPA, or the International Phonetic Alphabet, is a system of standardized speech sounds.

That may sound complicated so let’s back up for a second. English is a pretty confusing language to speak, some of this comes from the fact that English letters are not 1:1 with English sounds. For example, the letter ‘T’ can be pronounced like the ‘t’ in ‘tree’ or the ‘t’ in ‘the’. So one letter ‘T’ has at least two different sounds in English that it can represent.

In IPA, all symbols are 1:1 with a specific sound. So, the ‘T’ in ‘tree’ would be represented by the normal /t/ symbol, but the ‘T’ in ‘the’ would actually be represented by the symbol /ð/. The symbol /ð/ can look pretty daunting as it is not a symbol we normally see in English, but it represents a sound you already know how to pronounce, such as in the word ‘the’.

With this idea in mind, you can see then how the transcriptions under a dictionary definition can help someone to pronounce a word properly that they have never used before. If they know what sound each IPA symbol makes, they can put them together to properly pronounce a word just by reading the transcription.

Let’s use the following example to practice this idea:

[veɪˈkeɪʃən]

/v/ – This symbol is the normal ‘v’ sound in English, like in ‘v’ in the word ‘Love’

/eɪ/ – This is pronounced like the the Canadian ‘Eh’ sound, or the ‘ey’ sound in the word ‘hey’

/k/ – This is pronounced like the hard ‘c’ sound in the words ‘cake’ or ‘castle’

/eɪ/ – repeated ‘Eh’ sound as two above.

/ʃ/ – Pronounced the ‘Shh’, like the ‘sh’ in ‘ship’

/ə/ – Pronounced like the ‘e’ in the word ‘The’

/n/ – This is pronounced like the normal ‘n’ sound in words like ‘nose’ or ‘nap’.

If we put all those sounds together, what do we get?

Vacation!

See that wasn’t so bad, and who doesn’t love a vacation?

Benefits to IPA

I remember learning IPA in my very first linguistics course at university; it was quite simply something we needed to know to get a degree in Linguistics. I had flashcards that I practiced over and over until I eventually knew them by heart (I dug out my actual flash cards from university which you can see at the top of this post!).

However, the International Phonetic Alphabet has practical everyday uses as well, particularly for people trying to learn a new language!

A huge benefit to IPA is you can start pronouncing new words correctly the first time!

These symbols are called ‘international’ for a reason. Once you learn the symbols, if you see a transcription of a word, no matter the language, you will know how to pronounce it! Now that is super cool if you ask me.

English IPA symbols

There are over 100 IPA symbols, but each language only uses a portion of those. Here is a quick guide to the symbols used in English:

If you would like to hear all the IPA symbols being pronounced, even the ones English doesn’t have, this website is a great resource to check out.

If you would like to turn any English word into an IPA transcription, click here!

This is just a quick guide to the basics of IPA, but there is so much more to learn about it. From diphthongs, to manner of articulation, voicing, to why some words are in slashes like /kæt/ versus brackets like [kʰæt], learn it all in the Ultimate Beginners Guide to Linguistics coming soon.

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