Phonetic Alphabet Reference
Click on an IP symbol to listen to the example spoken.
| Vowels | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 ask, rather * |
 yea, say |
 father, odd |
 sigh, aisle |
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 make, eight |
 now, owl |
 sat, act |
 coy, oil |
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 seed, eat |
 know, row |
 red, end |
 ear, here |
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 it, since |
 air, snare |
 hope, old |
 are, barge |
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 sauce, off |
 oar, tore |
 log, toss * |
 sure, poor |
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 truth, blue |
 fire, liar |
 put, hook |
 tower, our |
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 under, love (stressed syllable) |
 about, second (unstressed syllable) |
 roses (unstressed syllable) |
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* Regional pronunciations most commonly heard in eastern and southern United States.
| Syllabic Consonants | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ankle, syllable |
 button, kitten |
 wisdom, prisim |
 church, bird |
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| Consonants | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 beg, tub |
 send, us |
 do, and |
 toe, ant*aspirated |
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 fan, scarf |
 shed, ash |
 grow, bag |
 cheap, each |
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 judge, enjoy |
 thin, tooth |
 hem, inhale |
 then, breathe |
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 kick, uncle *aspirated |
 vow, have |
 let, pal |
 wet, twin |
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 men, arm |
 when, white |
 nose, gain |
 you, yet |
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 wrong, anger |
 pleasure, vision |
 paper, damper *aspirated |
 zoo, ooze |
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 run, far |
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* k, p, and t may also be unaspirated as in make, map, and not