If you’ve studied a second language, you’ve no doubt noticed that it has different sounds—sometimes very different!—than your first language. Not only that, but it might also use unfamiliar letters or even an entirely different writing system! All of that can make it really difficult to figure out how a new word is pronounced.
That’s where the International Phonetic Alphabet (or IPA) comes in! This system of notation aims to represent every possible sound used in spoken language, and it’s a great tool for language learners who want to improve their pronunciation.
Read on for a guide to IPA, and how it can help you!
In this post:
- Why was the International Phonetic Alphabet created?
- How does the IPA work?
- How do I use the International Phonetic Alphabet?
Why was the International Phonetic Alphabet created?
The IPA was first introduced in the late 1800s by a group of French and English language specialists, and it was based on previous efforts to come up with a universal system of representing spoken language in writing. Its aim was to solve three major issues that arise with most languages’ writing systems:
Spelling and pronunciation don’t always go hand in hand
Many writing systems make it tricky to break down a word’s exact sounds. Due to the twists and turns of history, the same system may use the same letter to represent different sounds, or different combinations of letters to represent the same sound. English is a prime example, and is notorious for its finicky spelling and confusing pronunciation rules. But in IPA, distinct symbols go with each sound. Note also the use of slash marks (//) to distinguish IPA symbols from regular letters:
Same letters, different sounds
| Letter | IPA symbol | Example word |
|---|---|---|
| u | /u/ | rule |
| u | /ʊ/ | put |
| u | /ʌ/ | cut |
Same sounds, different letters
| Letter | IPA symbol | Example word |
|---|---|---|
| ea | /i/ | bead |
| ee | /i/ | tree |
| ey | /i/ | key |
| i | /i/ | chic |
This clarification is one of the biggest benefits of IPA. You don’t have to rely on a tricky English alphabet, for instance, and get confused as to which “u” sound you’re referring to: With IPA, each distinct sound gets one symbol, and vice versa.
Different languages use letters different ways
Even if you have a good grasp of a writing system (say, the Latin alphabet used in English), your understanding of sounds and pronunciations won’t necessarily hold across languages. For instance, in French, the letter “j” most often stands for the sound /ʒ/ as in joie), but in Spanish, “j” most often stands for the sound /x/ or /h/, as in ajo. So if you’re trying to compare languages and talk about their sounds, you can’t always rely on the spelling and pronunciation rules you’re used to!
It’s hard to capture all the details in one alphabet
Sometimes, a language’s alphabet uses the same letter to represent multiple different sounds because speakers of that language aren’t aware that they’re pronouncing the letter differently in different scenarios! In English, we pronounce the “p” in pan differently from the “p” in span, but it’s not something we do consciously, and it would be more confusing for English speakers if we used a different symbol for each “p” sound. The same goes for each “d” in the Spanish word dedo (finger), which in IPA is transcribed as [ˈde.ðo]. Those two “d” letters look identical, but in a Spanish speaker’s mouth, they’re actually different! That’s because the second “d” sound occurs between two vowels, so it becomes [ð] (which is actually the same “th” sound as at the beginning of English them).
How does the IPA work?
So, as we’ve seen, many languages have a different way of using the same letters, even if they appear to be identical. One of the biggest benefits of the IPA system as a language learner is that it enables you to quickly see how things are pronounced. You don’t need every IPA symbol to do this, but learning how it’s organized and what some of the terms mean can help you focus on the sounds that are new or difficult for you.
The entire IPA system of characters is organized into a chart containing 107 different consonants and vowels—but no language uses all of those! For example, U.S. English uses around 44 of these sounds, while Spanish has comparatively fewer, about 24.
The IPA chart is broken down into several sub-charts, with a few terms that are helpful to know:
Pulmonic consonants
Pulmonic consonants are made with air that flows from your lungs, and even though it’s just one subcategory of consonants, it’s an important one! All spoken languages that we know of have pulmonic consonants, and most languages—including English—only have consonants from this category. The table of pulmonic consonants is organized to give you three important pieces of information about the sound that each symbol represents.
Manner of articulation
The manner (or manner of articulation), labeled in the leftmost column, tells you how the air leaving your lungs is shaped or obstructed on its way out, which is an important part of making consonants sound different from each other.
For example, to make the sound /b/ (like in bad), the air is blocked entirely (you close your lips completely, then open them), making it a plosive, while for /m/ (like in the word mad), the air leaves through your nose rather than your mouth, making it a nasal sound.
Place of articulation
The topmost row tells you the place (or place of articulation), which describes where in your mouth (or throat) the sound is shaped. The sounds produced at the front of your mouth are on the left side of the table, and the sounds produced furthest back (in your larynx) are on the right side.
The sounds /b/ and /m/ that we mentioned above have different manners of articulation, but the same place of articulation: Both are bilabial, meaning that the sound is made using both lips, while sounds like /d/ (as in dine) and /n/ (as in nine) are called alveolar because your tongue touches the spot behind your top teeth known as your alveolar ridge.
Voicing
In addition to their position according to the manner and place of articulation, some sounds are listed in pairs: When this is the case, the sound to the right is voiced, meaning your vocal folds vibrate when it’s pronounced, while the sound on the left is voiceless, meaning that your vocal folds don’t vibrate to make it (just like when you whisper).
That means that /s/ (like in sip) and /z/ (like in zip), since they’re in the same cell, have the same manner of articulation (both are fricatives, made by producing friction while the air leaves your lungs) and the same place of articulation (both are alveolar, just like /d/ and /n/), and the only difference is that /s/ is voiceless while /z/ is voiced.
Notice what happens if you try to whisper the /z/ sound: It sounds a lot like /s/! Another trick: Say each out loud while resting your hand lightly on the front of your neck to feel your vocal folds vibrating during /z/, but not for /s/.
Vowels
Another important part of the IPA system is the vowel chart. The vowel chart is also broken down in a way that represents where the sound is made in your mouth, as if you were viewing a cross-section of someone’s mouth from the left, with the tip of the tongue on the left side of the chart, and the back of the tongue on the right side.
Similar to the table of pulmonic consonants, the vowel chart classifies vowel sounds according to three characteristics.
Height
Vowel height describes how high or low your tongue is within your mouth when you pronounce a vowel sound. High (sometimes called close) vowels are listed at the top of the vowel chart, and are produced with the tongue higher in the mouth (like the /i/ in bead), while the low (or open) vowels (like /æ/ as in bad) are pronounced with the tongue and jaw lower.
You can feel—and see!—the difference if you go back and forth between saying /i/ and /æ/ a few times in a row. Notice how your mouth opens and closes each time?
Backness
Backness refers to how far forward or back in your mouth a vowel is pronounced. Front vowels, like the /i/ in bead and the /ɛ/ in bed, are shown on the left side of the chart, and they’re pronounced with your tongue closer to the front of the mouth. Meanwhile, back vowels, like the /u/ in root and the /o/ road, on the right of the vowel chart, are pronounced with your tongue placed toward the back.
This is harder to see from the outside than vowel height, but if you alternate between a front vowel like /i/ (as in bead) and a back vowel like /u/ (as in root), you’ll be able to feel your tongue moving back toward your throat as you go from /i/ to /u/, and forward toward your teeth as you go from /u/ to /i/.
Roundedness
The last important piece of information given by the vowel chart is roundedness, which is whether or not your lips round into a circle shape when you pronounce a certain vowel sound. For each pair of vowels side-by-side in the vowel chart, the one on the left is rounded and the one on the right is unrounded.
This difference is the easiest to see from the outside: Look in a mirror and pronounce the /i/ in bead (an unrounded vowel), followed immediately by the rounded /u/ sound in root, and you’ll see and feel the way your lips change shape to make these different sounds!
Other sounds and features
In addition to pulmonic consonants and vowels, there are many, many other important details represented by the IPA. These include:
- Non-pulmonic consonants: Unlike pulmonic consonants, these categories of consonants don’t use air flowing outward from the lungs to produce a sound. They include click consonants, which form important parts of languages like Zulu and Xhosa, as well as ejectives (consonants pronounced just using air in the mouth, in a quick burst) found in the Quechuan, Aymaran, Kartvelian, and Afro-Asiatic languages, among many others.
- Other symbols: These are sounds that don’t fit neatly into the vowel or pulmonic consonant charts, often because they use more than one place or manner of articulation.
- Diacritics: These are marks added to the characters that provide further information and nuance about a sound’s place or manner of articulation.
- Suprasegmentals: These are used to give information about syllable stress, syllable length, and how syllables interact with one another.
- Tones and word accents: These show the tones that distinguish words in many languages like Chinese, Vietnamese, Punjabi, and Cherokee.
How do I use the International Phonetic Alphabet?
Besides its usefulness to linguists, knowing a bit about IPA can help improve your pronunciation skills!
Remember that no language uses all of the sounds represented by the IPA chart, so focus only on what’s relevant for you: Learn the IPA chart for English, and compare it to the IPA chart of the language you’re learning. First, notice what sounds both languages have in common, then move on to the sounds your new language has that aren’t in English.
You might also notice that both languages share lots of sounds, but your new language doesn’t always use them where you’d expect—or use the same letters to represent them! Look back at the dedo example above: English speakers don’t expect a “d” to be pronounced using the sound that we associate with “th,” but once you understand how and where Spanish uses the /ð/ sound, it becomes much easier to use and recognize!
Once you’ve read about the similarities and differences: Practice, practice, practice! Your mouth and brain need help learning these new positions, just like a muscle when you begin a new sport. This interactive IPA chart is a great way to hear individual sounds and how they differ, and this transcription website allows you to see how a given word is written in IPA in a few different languages.
IPA adventures on the horizon!
If you want to improve your pronunciation or go deeper to see how sounds work across and within languages, the IPA is a fantastic tool! And with a little bit of practice, you’ll quickly find that the opportunities are /ˈɛnd.ləs/.*
*That’s how you write endless in IPA!