IPA
What does IPA stand for?
• What does IPA stand for?
IPA stands for ‘international phonetic alphabet’.
• Why do we need IPA?
• International Phonetic alphabet (IPA) is a system for representing
phonetic sounds with symbols. it helps us to pronounce a word
correctly.
Well, we don’t have to learn it, but it can help us with English learning.
Here’s why.English spelling and pronunciation are horribly irregular. Let’s
take these words as examples:
thorough, Wednesday, consciousness, or champagne.
/ˈθʌr.ə/ , /ˈwenz.deɪ/, /ˈkɒn.ʃəs.nəs/
,
/ʃæmˈpeɪn/
There’s not much relation between what we write and what we say. That
makes things difficult.
IPA is a method of representing the letters in a word and we see the British
English Phonemic Chart below
• there are 44 sounds in English that means there are 44 phonetic
symbols that we need to know if we want to be able to look at a
phonetic transcription of a word and know how to pronounce that
word
• 20 of those are vowel sounds ,24 of those are consonants and for 16
of the consonants the phonetic transcription is exactly as you would
expect it to be. It is basically the letter that it usually represents in
written english.
wovel sounds
• 5 of those are long wovels. Here are some examples words
• iː Sea, speech, receive
• ɔː cork board saw
• uː True, food, chew
• ɜː Church, bird, her
• ɑː Fast, car, father
• 7 of them are short wovels. They are in some examples words below
• ɪ Pig, chick, itch
• ʊ Look, put, could
• e Egg, Friend, dead
• ə America, banana, again
• ʌ Cup, one, blood
• ɒ What, coffee, clock
• æ cat, marry, hand
And 8 diphthongs
• ɪə Beer, here, clear
• eɪ Plane, eight, great
• ʊə Pure, tourist, cure
• ɔɪ Boy, point, enjoy
• eə Hair, care, where
• aɪ Sign, write, try
• aʊ House, out, towel
• əʊ No, go, boat
RESORCES
• English with Liz
INTERACTIVE Phonetic Chart for RP English Pronunciation - British English Phonemes, Monophthongs..
• Crown Academy of English International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) | English
Pronunciation
• English with Greg BASIC Phonetics | Understanding The International Phonetic Alphabet
• Oxford Online English How to Read IPA - Learn How Using IPA Can Improve Your Pronunciation