THE PHONETIC ALHABET

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 AIM

To become familiar with the phonetic alphabet

as a tool to improve pronunciation skills.

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 Sound vs letter

English and Spanish Spanish is a

The term vowel and use the same 5 language in which
consonant can refer letters “a, e, i, o, u”. orthography In English the
to both sound and Spanish uses them approximates closely relationship
letter, but when to represent 5 VS, to the sounds between sound and
dealing with while represented by it. letter is extremely
Phonetics we’ll refer English uses them to We call it a complex.
to them as sound. represent many “phonetic language”.
more.

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 /m@seIdIz/
/m3:seIdi:z/
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Can you guess what it’s being said here?

/n@UwVn Iz g@UIN t@ gIv ju Di

edjukeISn ju ni:d tu @Uv@Tr@U D@m/

(tSA:li braUn)

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 /n@UwVn Iz g@UIN
t@ gIv ju Di edjukeISn
ju ni:d tu @Uv@Tr@U
D@m/

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VOWEL SOUNDS

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“Vowel sounds are produced
without contact between the
articulators causing no obstruction
to the air flow. They are better learnt
by listening and imitation.” (Finch &
Ortiz-Lira, 1982)

The English inventory includes 6

short vowels, 13 relatively long (5
pure vowels and 8 diphthongs) and 1
borderline case // (Finch & Ortiz-
Lira, 1982)

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Short vowels

IPA Symbol Word examples

/e/ went, intend, send, letter.

/æ/ cat, hand, nap, flat, have.

/ʌ/ fun, love, money, one, London, come.

/ʊ/ put, look, should, cook, book, look.

/ɒ/ Rob, top, watch, squat, sausage.

/ə/ alive, again, mother.

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 A very special sound

One of the most noticeable features of English pronunciation

is the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables.
In English a syllable which bears no stress is more likely to
have one of a small number of weak vowels, and the most
common weak vowel is one which never occurs in a stressed
syllable. That vowel is the schwa vowel /@/.
Statistically, this is reported to be the most frequently
occurring vowel of English (over 10% of all vowels). It is ironic
that the most frequent English vowel has no regular letter for
its spelling. Many foreign learners of English have difficulty in
learning to pronounce schwa. (Roach, 2002)

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Long vowels

IPA Symbol Word examples

/i:/ Need, beat, team.

/ɜ:/ Nurse, heard, third, turn.

/ɔ:/ Talk, law, bored, yawn, jaw.

/u: / Few, boot, lose, gloomy, fruit, chew.

/ɑ: / Fast, car, hard, bath.

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Diphthongs
IPA Symbol Word examples

/ɪə/ Near, ear, clear, tear, beer, fear

/eə/ Hair, there, care, stairs, pear

/eɪ/ Face, space, rain , case, eight

/ɔɪ/ Joy, employ, toy, coil, oyster.

/aɪ/ My, sight, pride, kind, flight

/əʊ/ No, don’t, stones, alone, hole

/aʊ/ Mouth, house, brown, cow, out

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CONSONANT SOUNDS

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“Consonant sounds are produced
with some kind of light or close
contact between the articulators and
can be taught in both articulatory and
auditory terms.” (Finch & Ortiz-Lira,
1982)

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Fricatives
IPA Symbol Word examples

/f/ full, Friday, fish, knife.

/V/ vest, village, view, cave.

/θ/ thought, think, Bath. 

/ð / there, those, brothers, others.

/s/ Said, accent, works,

/z / soo, crazy, lazy, zigzag, nose.

/ʃ/ shirt, rush, shop, cash.

/ʒ/ television, delusion, casual

/h/ high, help, hello.

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Plosives

IPA Symbol Word examples

/p/ Pin, cap, purpose, pause.

/b/ Bag, bubble, build, robe.

/t/ Time, tow, late.

/d/ Door, day, down, feed.

/k/ Cash, quick, cricket, sock.

/g/ Girl, green, grass, flag.

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Affricates

IPA Symbol Word examples

/ʈʃ/ Choose, cheese, church, watch.

/dʒ/ Joy, juggle, juice, stage.

/tr/ Train, try, attractive, entrepreneur

/dr/ Dream, drastic,

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Nasals

IPA Symbol Word examples

/m/ Room, mother, mad, more.

/n/ Now, nobody, knew, turn.

/ŋ/ King, thing, song, swimming.

Lateral
IPA Symbol Word examples

/l / Law, lots, leap, long, chill, melt.

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Approximants

IPA Symbol Word examples

/r/ road, roses, river, ring, ride.

/j/ yellow, usual, tune, yesterday, yard.

/w/ wall, walk, wine, world.

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Other symbols

• When we transcribe we also use these symbols:

, /
; . //
! (!)
? (?)
We don’t use capital letters in phonemic transcription.

The Pink Panther (9/12) Movie CLIP - I Would Like to Buy a

Hamburger (2006) HD 
https://youtu.be/Z6oeAdemFZw
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PRACTICE

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Read the cartoon and do the exercises that follow.

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 1. Match the phrase and its corresponding phonemic transcription

1 /D@ h@raIzn/ a. everybody

2. /@Uv@ De@/ b. the horizon
3. /haU mVtS ru:m/
c. how much room
4. /si:/
5. / evribQdi /
d. see
e. over there

2. Use phrases in exercise 1 and complete the transcription of the

cartoon.

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• Let’s check

/si: D@ h@raIzn @Uv@ De@ (?) si: haU bIg

DIs w3:ld Iz (? ) si: haU mVtS ru:m D@r Iz f@r

evribQdi //

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Sources

• Finch, D. & H. Ortiz Lira (1982). A Course in English Phonetics

for Spanish Speakers. London: Heinemann Educational Books.
• https://www.londonschool.com/blog/phonetic-alphabet/
• Waasaf, S. y Leánez, N. (Eds). (2019). English Sounds in Focus:
A Pronunciation Book for Spanish Learnes of English. San
Juan: effha.
• Roach, P. (2002). A Little Encyclopedia of Phonetics. Retrieved
from http://www.linguistics.reading.ac.uk/staff/Peter.Roach

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