What is Phonetic Transcription?

A phonetic transcription looks quite unlike a regular (‘orthographic’) transcription. The

transcriber notes the way the spoken words are pronounced, using a special alphabet of
phonetic symbols. The most common is the international phonetic alphabet (IPA).
 
Phonetic transcription is the use of phonetic symbols to represent speech sounds. Ideally,
each sound in a spoken utterance is represented by a written phonetic symbol, so as to furnish
a record sufficient to render possible the accurate reconstruction of the utterance.

Phonemic Chart
This phonemic chart uses symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet.
IPA symbols are useful for learning pronunciation. The symbols on this chart
represent the 44 sounds used in British English speech (Received
Pronunciation or RP, an educated accent associated with but not exclusive to
south-east England).

This version of the phoemic chart is based on the familiar Adrian

Underhill layout. Learners and teachers may want to print a copy of this
phonemic chart to keep close at hand for reference. See full size (will print on
A4 or US Letter)

Introduction to phonetic transcription

BY TOMASZ P. SZYNALSKI

Related pages

Demonstration of phonetic transcription

With phonetic transcriptions, dictionaries tell you about the pronunciation of

words. In English dictionaries, phonetic transcriptions are necessary, because the
spelling of an English word does not tell you how you should pronounce it.
Phonetic transcriptions are usually written in the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), in which each English sound has its own symbol. (You can take a
look at a chart with all the English sounds and their IPA symbols.)
For example, the IPA-based phonetic transcription of the word HOME  is hoʊm,
and the transcription of COME  is kʌm. Note that in spelling, these words are
similar. They both end in OME . But their phonetic transcriptions are different,
because they are pronounced differently.
Phonetic transcription is usually given in brackets, like this: /hoʊm/, /kʌm/. In a
dictionary, it looks like this:

(By the way, not all dictionaries give the pronunciations of words. If you are
serious about learning English, you should buy a dictionary which has this
information.)

Word stress
When a word has many syllables, one of them is always pronounced more
strongly. This is called word stress, and we say that the syllable is stressed.
For example, in the word BECOME , the stressed syllable is COME . If the stressed
syllable was BE , BECOME  would be pronounced like this.
Dictionaries tell you which syllable is stressed. The most popular system is to put
a vertical line (ˈ) before the stressed syllable in the phonetic transcription of the
word. For example, the transcription for BECOME  is /bɪˈkʌm/.

If a word has only one syllable (examples: PEN , WATCH ), dictionaries usually do

not put the ˈ stress mark before it. So they don’t write /ˈpen/ — they simply
write /pen/.

Some dictionaries use other systems for showing word stress. For example, they
may put ˈ after the stressed syllable, or they may underline the stressed syllable.

A demonstration
Have a look at our demonstration of the phonetic transcription system. You can
read the transcriptions of some English words and listen to their pronunciations
at the same time.
 Representing differences between British and American
English
Many words are pronounced differently in British and American English. Of
course, these differences must be reflected in phonetic transcriptions. There are
two basic ways to do this:
 Separate transcriptions for British and American English, for example:

DOT BrE /dɒt/, AmE /dɑːt/

FARM BrE /fɑːm/, AmE /fɑːrm/

GO BrE /gəʊ/, AmE /goʊ/

MOTHER BrE /ˈmʌðəʳ/, AmE /ˈmʌðər/ (or /ˈmʌðɚ/)

 This system is used in advanced learner’s dictionaries from Longman, Oxford and

Cambridge. The problem with this system is that you have to write two
transcriptions for most words, which takes up a lot of space.
 One “compromise” transcription for both British and American English. This is
done by using mostly British phoneme symbols plus the ʳ symbol.

DOT /dɒt/

FARM /fɑːʳm/

GO /goʊ/

MOTHER /ˈmʌðəʳ/
 In this system, transcriptions are shorter, but the reader has to know that, in
American English, ɒ changes to ɑ: and ʳ changes to r. This system is used e.g. in
the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary and in many
places on Antimoon.

Should you care about phonetic transcriptions?

Today, nearly all good English dictionaries have audio recordings. If you can
listen to any English word as it is pronounced by a native speaker, why should
you care about phonetic transcriptions? Here are a few reasons:
 If you want to have good English pronunciation, you have to learn and practice all
the English sounds anyway. If you’re going to learn each sound in the English
sound chart, you might as well learn its symbol – it doesn’t take that
much extra effort. It doesn’t even have to be a special project for you – all you
have to do is pay attention to the phonetic transcriptions in your dictionary. That
way, you will gradually learn the symbols.

1. *)All word recordings in this section come from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary (Third Edition).
Suppose you look up the word BOOT  and listen to its recording*. In theory, if you
are familiar with the sounds of English, you should be able to notice
that BOOT  has the “long u” sound of WHO  and SOON , and not the “short u”
of GOOD  and BOOK . But, in practice, you could miss that fact, especially if you’re a
beginner or you’re not paying enough attention. If you also read the phonetic
transcription /buːt/ and see the uː symbol (and know what it means), there’s
a bigger chance that you will notice and remember the correct
pronunciation.
There are more words whose spelling can make you hear things that aren’t there.
For example, many learners may “hear” that PANDA  ends in the vowel ɑː,
that HAWK  has a w sound, and that SYSTEM  has an e sound. In all such cases,
phonetic transcriptions can help escape the illusion. (Unfortunately, they can
create their own illusions.)

Transcriptions can also stop you from hallucinating. Let me explain what I mean.

Here’s an English word: COLONEL . And here is its audio pronunciation. Did you
notice anything unusual about this word and its pronunciation? If you didn’t
notice anything, here’s a hint: how many l’s does it have when you say it? That’s
right – only one l. However, it is very easy to miss that because the
spelling COLONEL  makes you expect two l’s. This expectation can affect your
perception – when you listen to the recording, it’s very easy to hear two l’s even
 though there is only one! Seeing the phonetic transcription /ˈkɜːnəl/ can help you
notice that the first L  in COLONEL  is silent.
 Dictionaries have more transcriptions than recordings. For example, the
transcriptions may show two ways to pronounce a word, but the recording will
show only one. If you can read phonetic transcriptions, you can get more
information out of a dictionary.
 On the Internet, people use phonetic transcription to discuss pronunciation
problems. If you want to join the discussion, or ask questions, you have to know
the transcription system.
 There are situations when you cannot listen to sound – for example, the
computer you’re using has no speakers, you don’t want to disturb other people,
you are in a noisy environment and can’t hear the sound, you only have access to
a paper dictionary, etc. Even if you can use audio, a glance at the transcription
can be faster than clicking a button and listening to a recording.
 If you’re making your own SRS items, you can add phonetic transcriptions more
easily (and more quickly) than audio recordings. See also: pronunciation items.
In short, you can learn good English pronunciation without knowing the IPA
symbols for English sounds, but learning those symbols is not that hard and you
get a few nice benefits in return.