THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETICS ALPHABET

Vowels
/i/ eat feel machine /ɔ/ sort call broad caught saw
/ι/ sit pretty busy /ʊ/ push book
/ε/ pet said many bury /u/ glue boot group screw
/æ/ sand /ɜ/ her firm worm burnt
/ɒ/ hot watch /a/ part glass half
/ʌ/ cut flood money America /ə/ canoe bucket dolphin iron
circus syringe father doctor
dollar picture

Diphthongs
/aι/ spider by night eye /oʊ/ go blow boat toe sew
/eι/ day snail race great they /ιə/ ear cheer here souvenir
/ɔι/ boy coin /εə/ hair care bear where prayer
/aʊ/ cow cloud thousand /ʊə/ tour sewer

Consonants (red sounds are voiceless; black sounds are voiced)

Except /h/ and /r/, each voiceless sound is whispering the voiced sound next to it.

/p/ play /b/ bad

/t/ take /d/ dog
/k/ kiss cat rock unique /g/ go
/f/ fun phone laugh /v/ love of Stephen
/ϴ/ think /ð/ them
/s/ sun city /z/ zebra cheese xylophone
/ʃ/ she sure chef special action /ʒ/ measure massage
/h/ happy /r/ run
/tʃ/ chair picture /dʒ/ jump bridge soldier
/m/ summer /n/ run knife
/ŋ/ ring sink /j/ yellow million failure
/w/ walk queen /l/ little
Sounds, words or phrases are written inside slashes. Put an apostrophe in front of a
stressed syllable and a comma in front of a secondary stress, eg
“multimillionaire” /,mʌltι’mιljənεə/. A sound in brackets is often omitted in fast speech, eg
“captain” /’kæpt(ə)n/. A colon after a vowel extends the sound, eg “had” /hæd/, “sad”
/sæ:d/; “red” /rεd/, “bed” /bε:d/; “pull” /pʊl/, “pool” /pʊ:l/.