INTERNATIONAL
PHONETIC ALPHABET
LINGUISTICS
LINGUISTICS
PHONETICS
It is the scientific study of speech of speech
sounds, which involves categorizing human
sounds, understanding the creation of sounds,
and comparing and contrasting sounds.
PHONEME
This is the smallest unit of sound in speech.
In English, there are 44 phonemes.
1 8 consonants 7 digraphs
5 r-controlled sounds
5 short vowels 5 long vowels
2 “oo” sounds 2 dipthongs
1 8 Consonant
Phonemes
· C-sounds that make a /k/ in crop, crack, creep and
· C-sounds that make an /s/ in central, cent, and cite.
· Q-sounds are also in words that contain the letters ‘kw’ as
in walkway, parkway, and awkward.
· X-sounds are also in words with ‘cks’ as in backstop, rocks,
and necks
7 Digraph Phonemes
Digraphs form when two consonants work
together to create a completely different sound.
5 R-Controlled, or Influenced
Phonemes
These phonemes are controlled or influenced by
the letter r.
5 Long Vowel Phonemes
Long vowels are vowel sounds whose
pronunciation is the same as its letter name.
5 Short Vowel Phonemes
A short vowel sound is a speech sound produced
by humans when the breath flows out through the
mouth without being blocked by the teeth,
tongue, or lips.
2 “oo” Vowel Phonemes
Long vowels are vowel sound whose
pronunciation is the same as its letter name.
2 Diphthongs
A diphthong is two vowels that work together to
form another sound.
Sound Blends
They are a group of consonant blends that create
distinct sounds, and you will often see them at the
beginning of a word.
INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC
ALPHABET
• It is an alphabet developed in the 1 9 th century to
accurately represent the pronunciation of languages.
• One aim of IPA is to provide a unique symbol for each
distinctive sound in a language.
VOWELS
/ɑ/
on, mom, not, October
/æ/
apple, bag, cat, ask
/ɛ/
egg, ten, bread, any
/ɜː/
shirt, Earth, nurse, work
/ɪ/
in, big, if, which
/i/
fifty, baby, we, these
/iː/
eat, sleep, beat, feet
/ɔː/
walk, yawn, August, all
/ʊ/
book, foot, pull, put
/uː/
flute, blue, fruit, food
/ʌ/
up, run, but, love
/ə/
balloon, camel, pencil, minus
DIPHTHONGS
/aɪ/
bike, sky, pie, price
/aʊ/
mouth, cow, now, loud
/eɪ/
game, rain, play, hay
/oʊ/
home, comb, road, window
/ɔɪ/
coin, boy, toy, spoil
CONSONANTS
/b/
boy, tub, bib
/d/
desk, sad, dad, do
/f/
family, leaf, laugh, phone
/g/
girl, big, grace
/h/
hand, head, heart, who
/j/
yawn, yell, yogurt
/k/
king, cat, cake, rock, school
/l/
lion, pencil, love, loud
/m/
moon, man, arm, climb
/n/
nest, lion
/p/
pen, map, pluck, peace
/r/
run, room
/s/
sun, nuts, face, place
/t/
ten, goat
/v/
van, love, vase
/w/
water, whale, wasp
/z/
zebra, quiz, beans, cookies
/ŋ/
sing, wing, running, think
/ʒ/
genre, measure, pleasure, garage
/dʒ/
just, gym, huge, jet
/ʃ/
shoes, fish, she, social
/tʃ/
child, cheese, lunch, much
/θ /
three, mouth, nothing, death
/ð/
this, mother, there, smoothie
READ THIS!
/kɜːnl/
/sɪt/
/kɪŋ/
/rɑʊnd/
/jʊ kæn dʊ ɪt/
/hæv ə grɛɪt dɛɪ/
/ʧɪtɪŋ ɪz ə krɑɪm/
/oʊnlɪ ðə bɛst ɪz gʊd ɪnəf/