PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

Phonemic (Broad) Transcription of Australian English

Robert Mannell and Felicity Cox
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speech.

Phonemic (Broad) Transcription

Phonemic transcription of speech does not attempt to record the extremely large number of
idiosyncratic or contextual variations in pronunciation that occur in normal speech nor does it
attempt to describe the individual variations that occur between speakers of a language or dialect.
Such a detailed transcription is a phonetic transcription and is partially dealt with in the topic on
phonetic transcription.
The goal of a phonemic transcription is to record the phonemes that a speaker uses rather than
the actual spoken variants of those phonemes that are produced when a speaker utters a word. A
phoneme is an abstract linguistic entity that exists entirely in the brain of a speech producer or a
speech perceiver. Each phoneme is not a sound, but it is realised in the outside world as a class
(or group) of sounds that are actually uttered. Such spoken variants of each phoneme are known
as its allophones. See the topic on Phoneme and Allophone for further information.
Strictly speaking a phonetic (narrow) transcription classifies speech sounds in terms of the
actually spoken sounds whilst a phonemic transcription classifies speech sounds in terms of the
phonemes that a speaker was intending to communicate.
What symbols should we use for a phonemic transcription of Australian English?
Since phonemes are not sounds but rather exist as abstract linguistic entities in the brain, they
could be represented by any arbitrary system of symbols. It is convenient, however, to use a
standard system of symbols so that other people can understand what we are writing. The most
widely accepted system of symbols is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This alphabet is
used to represent both phonemes and allophones in normal practice even though it is defined in
terms of actual speech sounds.

When linguists are developing a phonemic description of a language or dialect they most often
select the most common or widely distributed allophone of each phoneme as the typical
allophone of that phoneme and use its phonetic symbol to represent the phoneme as a whole.
When a symbol is used to represent an actual sound (allophone) it has an entirely different
meaning to the same symbol when used to represent a phoneme. For this reason we always
enclose transcriptions in /.../ when we are indicating phonemes and in [...] when we are
indicating the actually produced sounds.
For example, /k/ might represent a particular English phoneme, which in this case can be realised
in actual speech as an aspirated, unaspirated or unreleased velar stop, as a more fronted palatal
stop, as a more retracted uvular stop, as a stop produced in some intermediate position between
these extremes and also as fricative variants of these stop sounds. The true identity of /k/ is
possibly better described by a system of phonological features (see the topic on Distinctive
features). [k] on the other hand represents a sound that is an unaspirated velar oral stop.
What symbols should we use for a phonemic transcription of Australian English?
a. Consonants

The symbols for the consonants are not problematic as the phoneme inventories of the
consonants of most English dialects are identical and the consonant symbols used below are the
same consonant symbols used for the consonant phonemes of British, American, New Zealand,
Canadian, South African and other English dialects. There are some differences in the
pronunciation of a small number of phonemes but this has not affected the choice of phonetic
symbol to be used for each consonant phoneme across these dialects.
b. Vowels

There is much greater difficulty in determining the symbols for the vowel phonemes. Firstly,
there is a significant variation between English dialects in the number of vowel phonemes.
Secondly there is considerable variation in vowel phoneme pronunciation between dialects (even
those that share the same vowel phonemes). There are different systems applied to British and
American English and even different systems applied to different dialects within the United
Kingdom and the United States of America.
For many years the system that has most often been applied to Australian English vowels is
known as the Mitchell-Delbridge system. This system evolved from the work of Mitchell and
Delbridge (between the 1940s and the 1960s) but which was mostly based on the system applied
to south eastern British English. The Mitchell-Delbridge system is the one used in the Macquarie
Dictionary and traditionally in speech pathology clinics in Australia. However, it is now
progressively being replaced by the HCE system. Whilst still quite widespread, the MitchellDelbridge system is not a good reflection of actual Australian pronunciation.
In this course we use instead the system devised by Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997). We use
this system because it better represents the average pronunciation of these vowels by speakers of
Australian English. It also fulfils the requirement that the symbols used for the phonemic

transcription of each phoneme is the most common or widely distributed allophone of that
phoneme. For a rationale, see Cox (2012).
For a comparison of several phonemic transcription systems used for the transcription of
Australian English vowels, see the topic entitled Vowel Symbols for Australian English
Phonemes.
For an overview of the Mitchell-Delbridge system for the phonemic transcription of Australian
English, click here.

Phonemes of General Australian English

Consonants
The voiceless (or unvoiced) consonants are on the left and the voiced consonants are on the right
in each of the tables, below.
1. Oral stops (or plosives)
/p/
/t/
/k/

pat
tin
cap

/b/
/d/
//

bat
din
go

2. Affricates
/t/ or /t/

/d/ or /d/

choose

judge

3. Fricatives
/f/
//
/s/
//
/h/

fan
think
so
she
he

/v/
//
/z/
//

van
these
zoo
beige

4. Nasals (or nasal stops)

/m/
/n/
//

my
no
sing

5. Approximants
/w/

we

/j/
/l/
//

you
leaf
run

Note: /w/ and /j/ are also called semi-vowels, because they are very similar acoustically to
vowels.

Vowels
This material should be read in conjunction with the lecture materials on Australian English
Vowels.
1. Monophthongs

/i/
/e/

Long vowels
heed
hair

//
/o/
//
//

hard
hoard, saw
who'd
herd

//
/e/
//
//
//
//
//

Short vowels
hid
head
had
mud
pod
hood
the (spoken quickly)

2. Diphthongs
//
/e/
/o/
//

say
high
toy
cure

//
//
//

so
how
here

Note: These vowel symbols differ significantly from the vowel phoneme symbols used for
Australian English in the Macquarie Dictionary, but more closely represent the way average
speakers of General Australian English actually pronounce these vowels. They also differ from
the symbols used for the same vowel phonemes in British and American English. Note the
difference between these symbols and the ones used by Ladefoged for American English in the
textbook. These differences reflect differences in pronunciation.

Diagnostic chart of General Australian English Vowels

//
/i/
/e/
//
//

Is a little lipstick permissible for women in Egyptian villages?

The trees seem a very deep green this season.
Fred was sent to bed at twenty to seven.
That man had a bad habit of cramming his hats and jackets into a bag.
It's rather hard to laugh when your fast car can't pass a large farm cart.

//
//
/o/
//
//
//
//
//
/e/
/o/
//
//
//
/e/

My brother jumped but stumbled into a muddy puddle.

Frogs squat on rotten logs in foggy bogs.
The author's small daughter was born on August the fourth.
Look at the cook putting sugar in the pudding.
Who'd choose the juice of stewed fruit such as prunes?
It's absurd for a worker to burn his dirty work shirt.
One of the policemen told them there was a photographer at the corner.
The waiter gave the lady the eight stale cakes.
A bright white light is shining high in the sky.
I'm annoyed that the poisonous oysters have spoilt my enjoyment.
This town has a thousand houses with a mouse in every house.
I hope Joan won't go home alone.
The engineer's gear is near here on the pier.
Sarah has fairer hair than Mary.

// note: There is a great deal of inter-personal variability for this centring diphthong. Some
people use it for some words, other people for other words. Some speakers don't use it at all (or
only rarely) substituting either // (a sequence of 2 phonemes) or /o/ (a long monophthong).
For this reason no examples are given here.

Exercises
1) Find the errors in the consonant phonemes in the following transcription. In each word there is
one error, indicating an impossible variety of English.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

slang
crime
lamb
wishing
knives
these
hijack
swimming
sixty
myths
exclusion
human

/sln/
/cem/
/lmb/
/wsh/
/nevs/
/iz/
/hejk/
/swmm/
/sxti/
/mths/
/kskln/
/hymn/

2) A pair of words which differs in only one phoneme is said to be a minimal pair. Find minimal
pairs for the following. It is acceptable to write the orthographic form for each word. Phonemic
transcription is not required.
initial position

final position

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

/p b/
/t d/
/k /
/f v/
/s z/
/m n/
/n /
/ l/
/t /
/p f/
/d z/
/t /
/h w/
/s /

---------------

--------

Word Stress
Primary Stress
In English, the syllables of words differ in prominence. In polysyllabic words (words of more
than one syllable), one of the syllables always has a greater degree of prominence than any other
syllable. The syllable of greatest prominence is known as the primary stressed syllable, or the
syllable that carries primary stress. The primary stressed syllable can be marked by placing
a mark in the following way:
Primary stress
apart
define
pattern
metal
pamela
impudent
miserable
phonetics

part
fine
pat
met
pam
im
mis
net

In monosyllabic words (words of one syllable), the outcome is unambiguous: the syllable, i.e.
word, has primary stress (eg.
heat,
look,
greet) and does not need to be marked.

Secondary stress
Many words have two stresses, one primary and one secondary. The secondary stress can be
marked by placing a diacritic before the syllable which has secondary stress:

Secondary
ac
pol
ec
ex
lib
vir
gen
nom
rho

academic
apoloetic
economic
explanation
deliberation
environmental
enerosity
phenomenoloy
rhododendron

Primary
dem
get
nom
nat
rat
ment
ros
nol
den

Further comments
(i) words that have secondary stress are very often morphologically related to simpler forms
eg.

apoloetic /
enerosity /

apoloy;
enerous.

(ii) secondary stress (mostly) precedes the primary stress

(iii) at least one syllable (usually) intervenes between the secondary and primary stress
Exceptions to (ii) and (iii): Compounds
A compound is a word which is composed of two separate words. Examples would be roadblock,
sunglasses and loudspeaker. These have two stresses, one of them primary, the other secondary.
The secondary stress can precede or follow the primary stress, and there need not be an
intervening syllable:
surchare
blackboard
supermarket
sunlasses
loudspeaker
upstairs
outstare

or

upstairs

Exceptions to (ii) and (iii): Unreduced syllables

There are some words in which the secondary stress can follow the primary stress. In such cases,
it is conventional to refer to the secondary stressed syllable as an unreduced syllable. The
same diacritic can be used to indicate an unreduced syllable.

Primary
al
re
sys
an
syll
rhu
diph
po

alternate
realise
systematise
anecdote
syllabub
rhubarb
diphthon
potash

Unreduced
nate
lise
tise
dote
bub
barb
thong
tash

In some cases, the occurrence of an unreduced syllable is predictable (eg. words ending in -ate or
-ise), in others it is not. Note that there is also not necessarily a requirement that an unstressed
syllable intervene between the primary stressed and unreduced syllable.

Unstressed syllables
In almost all cases, syllables other than primary stressed, secondary stressed or unreduced
syllables are unstressed. In General Australian English, the large majority of the vowels of
unstressed syllables can be transcribed as //:
/bdkt/
/dmt/
/kmben/
/knfmn/
/kndn/
/lbt/
/ptl/

abduct
admit
combine
confirmation
condition
elaborate
patrol

There are also some cases when unstressed vowels have a quality other than //. It is not possible
to list them all, but some of these include:
Some words that end in unstressed -ish, -ic, -ism and -ing
/d/
/mjzk/
/kmjnzm/
/n/

radish
music
communism
running

/i/ and / / in unstressed syllables (nb. not // and //)

Unstressed /i/ and // occur in a number of words before //, some of which are given below:
/njl/
/ktl/

annual
actual

/kntnjs/
/din/
/dni/
/veis/

continuous
guardian
junior (nb. can also be pronounced
various

/dnj/ )

Word-final unstressed /i/ and //

/i/ in words like
// in words like

very,
potato,

city,

every

barrow

Unstressed vowels preceding stressed vowels

/nflenl/
/piin/

(not
(not

/nflenl/ )
/pin/ )

influential
appreciation

Some further comments on schwa //

Schwa is also known as the "indeterminate vowel" because its exact pronunciation varies with
context. Sometimes schwa has a quality reminiscent of //, sometimes // and sometimes of
other vowels. In other words it is not always a central vowel with a quality similar to that of //.
Its main distinguishing feature is that it is a very short, unstressed vowel with a tendency to be
more centred than the majority of the vowels. Very often you will hear speakers pronounce a
vowel such as the final vowel in "mother" in a way that makes it sound like // rather than what
you might expect // to sound like. Such a sound is still considered to be a schwa, however. In a
word final position the only vowels that can occur are the long monophthongs, the diphthongs
and schwa. There is a rule in English which only permits long vowels (ie. long monophthongs
and diphthongs) in open syllables (syllables that end in a vowel rather than a consonant). The
only exception to this rule is schwa, which occurs because it is a reduction of a long vowel. So, if
you hear // at the end of a word such as "mother" treat it as //.

Exercise
Primary and secondary stress
Mark primary stress using and any secondary stressed or unreduced syllables using . You do
not need to give a phonemic transcription. Mark stress as it occurs in the recording.
Example: economic Answer: economic
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)

accommodation
certainty
orthodox
fanatical
greenhouse

(vi)
(vii)
(viii)

methodical
unbelievable
Adelaide

Syllabic consonants
A syllabic consonant occurs when there is no vowel in a syllable. Certain sonorant consonants
(nasals and approximants) can replace a vowel as the nucleus of a syllable. We call such
consonants "syllabic". In English, syllabic consonants occur frequently in some contexts and less
frequently in others. Whilst in certain contexts syllabic consonants occur with very high
frequency, it is not obligatory for this to happen. The frequency of use of syllabic consonants is
speaker-dependent.
Syllabic /n/ and /l/ occur, with very high frequency, after alveolar consonants at the end of words.
Additionally, syllabic /m/ sometimes occurs when there is a preceding /b/ or//. In phonemic
transcriptions we include the preceding (weakened or deleted) schwa (//). In words subject to
this process there is a continuous range of degrees of vowel weakening, from partial weakening
to complete vowel deletion but the syllable still exists, so we indicate this in phonemic
transcription by indicating the vowel. This is speaker dependent and also depends upon rate of
speech. For this course, you will include the schwa in your phonemic transcriptions. Only in
phonetic transcriptions will we delete the schwa (when appropriate) and only in phonetic
transcriptions will we indicate, using a diacritic, that a consonant is syllabic (when appropriate).
In the following examples the vowel has been greatly reduced or deleted and the final consonant
has been judged to be syllabic BUT for phonemic transcriptions of such words you must indicate
the schwa. In other words, for your phonemic transcriptions you don't need to determine whether
or not the vowel has been fully deleted, partially deleted, reduced in duration and strength or
fully maintained. If you hear two syllables, whether or not you can hear the vowel, treat the
vowel as phonologically present and include it in your phonemic transcription.
/btn/
/sdn/
/dzn/
/ktl/
/mdl/
/ksl/
/mzl/
/fenl/
/lbm/
/fm/

The word in connected speech

button
sadden
dozen
cattle
middle
castle
muzzle
final
album
fathom

When words occur in connected speech, there can be many modifications to their phonemic form
compared with their production in isolation. It is not possible to cover all the different kinds of
modifications that can arise. Some of the more important changes are listed below.

(i) Function words

The label function word is often used to describe a class of words which serves a purely
grammatical role. Since their presence is usually predictable from context, their vowels can
reduce to [] and some of their consonants may also be deleted. Some function words are given
below. The left column shows the forms that might occur when the words are produced in
isolation (the citation form), the right columns include forms which are more typical of
continuous speech.

am
an
and
are
as
at
been
but
can
could
do
does
for
from
had
has
have
he
her
him
his
is
must
of
shall
should
some
than
that

Citation
/m/
/n/
/nd/
//
/z/
/t/
/bin/
/bt/
/kn/
/kd/
/d/
/dz/
/fo/
/fm/
/hd/
/hz/
/hv/
/hi/
/h/
/hm/
/hz/
/z/
/mst/
/v/
/l/
/d/
/sm/
/n/
/t/

Continuous speech forms

/m/
/n/
/nd/, /n/
//
/z/
/t/
*/bin/, /bn/
/bt/
/kn/
/kd/
*/d/, /d/
*/dz/, /dz/
/f/
/fm/
/hd/, (/d/)
/hz/, (/z/)
/hv/, (/v/)
*/hi/, (/i/)
*/h/, /h/, (//)
*/hm/, (/m/)
*/hz/, (/z/)
*/z/
*/mst/, /mst/
/v/
/l/
/d/
*/sm/, /sm/
/n/
*/t/, /t/

Rapid speech forms

/m/
/n/
/n/
/z/

/d/
/z/

(/d/), /d/
/z/
/v/
//
//,//
(/m/)
(/z/)
/z/
/mst/
//, /v/
/l/

them
there
to
us
was
were
who
will
would
you

/em/
/e/
/t/
/s/
/wz/
/w/
/h/
/wl/
/wd/
/j/

/m/
*/e/
/t/
/s/
/wz/
*/w/, /w/
*/h/, (//)
*/wl/, /wl/
*/wd/, /wd/, /d/
*/j/, /j/

/m/
//

//
/l/
/d/, /d/

Note in the above table that there are occasions where it is common to produce the citation form
in connected speech. Such common cases are repeated in the continuous speech column and
marked with a *. In some cases that form is only normally reduced in rapid speech, whilst in
some cases there is both a reduced and an unreduced connected speech form, which may be
selected between at the whim of the speaker or for semantic reasons. Further, occasionally even
the most commonly reduced words, such as "the" may be pronounced as the citation form in
connected speech when there is a strong semantic need to stress that word:
eg. "This isn't just A book, this is THE book." (referring to a book of particular importance to the
speaker)
You might also note that for some of the pronouns there are some forms surrounded by round
brackets. These forms are the "dropped h" forms which some speakers use in normal connected
speech. Other speakers choose forms with the "h" intact in normal connected speech, but may
"drop the h" in rapid speech.

(ii) Post-vocalic // (words spelt with a final "r" or "re")

In Australian English // is only pronounced after vowels in certain circumstances.This is
because Australian English is a non-rhotic dialect.
// may be pronounced at the end of words if the following word begins with a vowel or
diphthong. The following transcriptions would therefore be appropriate:
At the end of sentences, when produced in isolation, or preceding a pause, no // is pronounced:
/ k/

the car

Before words that begin with consonants, no // is pronounced:

/ k sit/

the car seat

Before words that begin with vowels, // may be pronounced:

/ k z n dev/

the car is in the drive

This is an example of linking //.

// can also be present in the absence of orthographic "r". This is called "intrusive //" and can
occur when the vowels //, // or /o/ are followed by a vowel in the next syllable within or
across words.
/do/
/tin in/

drawing
Tina Arena

(iii) Assimilation
In continuous speech, alveolar consonants can assimilate to the place of articulation of a
following consonant in certain contexts. This process is certainly not obligatory, but it is
nevertheless sufficiently common that the rules should be known.
a) alveolar consonants can assimilate to a bilabial place of articulation before labials
/meppt/
/mepbe/
/mepmk/
/mepwn/
/bpt/
/bbe/
/bmk/
/bwn/
/simpit/
/simbl/
/simmek/
/simwolt/

might put
might buy
might make
might win
should put
should buy
should make
should win
seen Peter
seen Bill
seen Mike
seen Walter

b) alveolar consonants can assimilate to a velar place of articulation before velar consonants
/mekkm/
/mek/
/km/
//
/sikn/
/sie/

might come
might go
should come
should go
seen Karen
seen Greg

c) alveolar fricatives can assimilate to a palato-alveolar place of articulation before // and /j/
/p/

this shop

/iip/
/j/
/telj/

these sheep
this year
tells you

When the following word is a function word, the /j/ may also be elided:
/knidt/
/hletkm/

in case you need it

has your letter come?

d) alveolar stops and a following /j/ may merge to form an affricate

/tez/
/dd/

shut your eyes

did you?

e) word-internal assimilation
The same processes of assimilation can also take place word-internally. Often this will be in
compounds or words that are formed from a root+affix eg.:
/bbe/
/tbpl/
/mmvd/
/ho/

good-bye
tadpole
unmoved
horse-shoe

(iv) Consonant deletion

/t/ and /d/ are particularly prone to delete when they occur between two consonants. Some
examples are given below:
Full Form
/mendz/
/hndfl/
/dektli/
/nvestmnt/

Deleted Stop
/menz/
/hnfl/
/dekli/
/nvesmnt/

amends
handful
directly
investment

/t/ and /d/ can also delete in many cases when the following consonant belongs to a different
word:
/nekst d/
/ld mn/

/neks d/
/l mn/

next day
old man

Some final notes on problems related to the phonemic

transcription of Australian English

As you attempt the transcription practice exercises you will notice some discrepancies between
what you might expect and what we have supplied as a correct transcription. These discrepancies
may be due to one of the following reasons:1. The principles or "rules" outlined above are what would be expected to occur most of the time,
not all of the time. These rules are probabilistic. That is, they predict what is likely to occur, not
what must always occur. Even the very common alveolar assimilations don't always occur and a
couple of exceptions can be found in the practice exercises. You must listen and decide for
yourself if a predicted rule has been applied by a speaker. Use the rules as your starting point, but
then listen and determine if they have actually been applied.
2. Sometimes schwa is confused for another vowel. Read "some further comments on schwa", in
the text above.
3. Sometimes we have indicated a voiced oral stop or fricative, but you hear its voiceless
counterpart. This is because of a process known as "devoicing" which occurs for these sounds
when they precede a pause or a voiceless consonant. This is dealt with in the section on phonetic
transcription. For now, and only when the circumstances outlined in the next sentence are true,
indicate the voiced stop or fricative when the orthography indicates the voiced sound and the
voiceless stop or fricative when the orthography indicates the voiceless sound. Only do this,
however, for a stop or fricative:

at the end of a word uttered alone

at the end of an utterance

at the end of a word immediately preceding a pause (eg. before a comma or a full stop)

at the end of a word when the next word starts with a voiceless consonant.

BUT, be very careful of how you transcribe the {-s} and the {-ed} morphemes as these are
allocated "allomorphs" (alternative pronunciations of a morpheme) on the basis of the following
rules:{-s} morpheme (verb 3rd person singular present tense, or noun plural)
{-s}
"catches")
/lsz/
/mzz/
/lz/
/kz/

/z/ following a /s/, /z/, //, //, /t/ or /d/ (e.g. " glasses", "mazes", "lashes",
glasses
mazes
lashes
catches

/z/ following a vowel or a voiced consonant (other than /z/, //, or /d/) (e.g.
"dogs", "pads", "bins")
/dz/
/pdz/
/bnz/

dogs
pads
bins
/s/ following a voiceless consonant (other than /s/, //, or /t/) (e.g. "cats", 'tips",

"packs")
/kts/
/tps/
/pks/

cats
tips
packs

For example in
{-ed} morpheme (verb past tense)
{-ed}

/d/ following /t/ or /d/ (e.g. "wanted", "guided")

/wntd/
/edd/

wanted
guided
/d/ following a vowel or a voiced consonant (other than /d/) (e.g. "rowed",

"dodged")
/d/
/dd/

rowed
dodged
/t/ following a voiceless consonant (other than /t/) (e.g. "tossed", "walked")

/tst/
/wokt/

tossed
walked

4. Occasionally we make mistakes in our transcriptions. If you think that we have made a
mistake, let us know and we will double check to see if an error has occurred.

References
Cox, F., (2012) Australian English: Pronunciation and Transcription, Cambridge University
Press.
Harrington, J., Cox, F., and Evans, Z. (1997) An acoustic phonetic study of broad, general, and
cultivated Australian English vowels. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 17, 155-184.

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The IPA for language learning: an

introduction to phonetics
Learn to pronounce languages using the International
Phonetic Alphabet
These lessons introduce you to phonetics and the IPA. If you enjoy this approach, consider my
workbook for more practice.
1. Introduction
2. Vowels
3. Consonants
4. Syllables
5. Words & phrases

6. An extra challenge
7. Answers to the exercises

Introduction
Symbol-to-sound correspondence
Imagine that you wanted to represent the pronunciation of a language as accurately as possible in
writing. This seems like an easy task. After all, isn't that what the invention of the alphabet was
all about?
Well, consider English. We write an "a" in change, ball and hand even though that "a" represents
a different sound in each word. Some simple sounds are represented by two letters (like "th" in
thing) while sometimes a single letter represents two sounds (like "x" in example)!
Maybe a more "phonetic" language, like Spanish, fares better? Initially, it would seem so: "a"
sounds the same in avin, sola and amigas. Yet Spanish spelling masks the difference between
the "g"s in gringo vs. agua vs. gente. What's more, the way a Cuban leaves off the final "s" in
muchos or how a Latin American speaker pronounces "s" and "z" the same account for only a
few of the intricacies that hide behind standard Spanish spelling. English and Spanish spelling
demonstrate how languages can't even use their own alphabets to encode their sounds accurately.
To tackle the problem, we first need to understand a basic concept missing from our discussion
so far: the phoneme. Phonemes are individual units of sound that can be pronounced on their
own and considered "one sound". To represent the pronunciation of a language accurately, we
can break words and phrases into these individual sounds, these phonemes. Then, if we assign a
unique "letter" (or symbol) to every possible phoneme, we could write the pronunciation
accurately, without confusion and contradiction.
Steps toward understanding the IPA
Initially, all that may seem like a trivial thought experiment, but it teaches you the thinking
behind the International Phonetic Alphabet. The IPA is a tool, really just a set of many symbols,
that allows you to display and read any stream of sounds in any natural language. It's a way to
"hear with your eyes" and imitate pronunciation more accurately. It rivals our ability to record
the human voice in its usefulness to help us understand and analyze the pronunciation of the
world's languages.
In this lesson, you will begin to learn about the phonetic concepts that underpin the IPA.
Specifically, you will learn about vowels and consonants and how the human mouth produces
them. You will learn many of the most common IPA symbols relating to vowels and consonants.
Then, you will learn how syllables and larger chunks of speech work, and how to use IPA to
represent those. Along the way, you'll have opportunities to work with the pronunciation of
words in a variety of languages.

Vowels - their features & IPA symbols

On the rare occasion that you talk about vowels, you probably identify them by their letter names
(like the letter "e"). What if you wanted to explain how and why the sound of "e" differs from "a"
or "u"? For starters, you might use the concept of a phoneme. You would mention that the
phonemes represented by the letter "e" vary from word to word. In words like "scene", it sounds
like the "i" in the word "sing". As is custom, let's write that phoneme between slashes: /i/ in
"sing" and "scene". Then, you'll need to understand the features that make up /i/ which
distinguish it from other phonemes like /a/ or /u/.
Height of your tongue or jaw
These features I mentioned have to do with the way you pronounce vowels using your tongue,
mouth and jaw. First, let's consider that the position of your tongue relative to the roof of your
mouth when you pronounce a vowel. When you say the vowel in "saw", your tongue is further
away from the palate (the roof of your mouth) than when you say "sing". This feature is known
as vowel height. Vowels can be classed as high (like /i/ or /u/), mid (like /e/ or /o/) or low (like
/a/) depending on the height of your tongue in your mouth.
Height may be thought of as describing your jaw instead. When you pronounce the phoneme //
in "father", notice that your mouth is much more open than when you pronounce /u/ in "rune".
From this perspective, vowels can be classed as close (again, as /i/ or /u/), mid (again, as /e/ or
/o/) or open (again, like /a/). In other words, close and high are synonymous, as are open and
low.
How far back you place your tongue
Vowels have another essential feature. You push your tongue forward when you say the /i/ in
"sing", but pull your tongue back when pronouncing the // in "father". This feature of vowels is
known as backness. Vowels can be labeled front (like /i/ or /e/), central (as /a/) or back (like /o/
or /u/).
Combining features to identify specific vowels
You'll be hard-pressed to name a vowel based on its backness or height alone. If we treat these
features as pieces or components of vowels, we can put any two features together and arrive at a
vowel. For instance, rather than talking about "the vowel in scene", we can accurately pinpoint
the "close front vowel". You may think of these feature sets as two axes on a chart, with backness
on the x-axis and height on the y-axis.

close
mid
open

front
i,
, e

central

back
u,
, o

Recognizing IPA vowels in English & other languages

We can use English words to recognize most of the above phonemes. Watch the included video
above to hear the sounds pronounced clearly. Here are some of the cleanest examples easily
heard within English words:
IPA symbols
//
//
//
//
//
//
//

example words
sit
let
math
reduction
father
ought
books

The pure vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/ and /u/ are more difficult for most English speakers. They have to
be extracted from diphthongs where they're pronounced before a y-sound (after front vowels /i/
and /e/) or w-sound (after the back vowels /o/ and /u/). The phoneme /a/ is the first element of the
diphthong /ai/ (in "aisle") and /au/ (as in "out") for many English speakers. It is also found in
Australian English, and is the normative "a" sound in all Romance languages. We'll learn more
about diphthongs later.
IPA symbols
/i/
/e/
/a/
/o/
/u/

example words
seem
say
aisle
low
soon

notes
leave out the final "y" sound
leave out the final "y" sound
leave out the final "y" sound
leave out the final "w" sound
leave out the final "w" sound

By comparison and with a good ear, you can notice the same phonemes in any language you're
learning. In languages as different as Japanese and Hawaiian, "i" is pronounced /i/. What's more,
you'll be able to imitate unfamiliar vowels. Spanish, French and Italian "a" all sound like /a/
(rarely heard in American English) rather than //. French, German and Ancient Greek all have a
rounded close front vowel represented by /y/ (sounds like /i/ but pronounced with your lips
rounded).
Other features that differentiate vowels
We can consider secondary features. Other features include roundness (you round your lips when
you pronounce /u/) and nasalization (French & Portuguese vowels before n/m + consonant are
pronounced through the nose; in rapid speech some English speakers say "hand me that" with a
nasal //).

Keep in mind that an essential function of vowel features is to represent how speakers of a
language distinguish vowels. For instance, if mid-front, mid-central and mid back vowels don't
sound different to speakers of language X, then language X does not distinguish backness as a
feature of mid vowels.
Ultimately, as you learn more about sound systems in languages, you'll see you can define vowel
features more precisely by subtle variations in the quality of the sound produced than by how
they are made in the mouth, as we have defined them.
Practice Exercise
1) Identify every vowel phoneme in the words below. First, list the features of each vowel, then
write each vowel in IPA. Note that silent e's are silent, or zero-phonemes:
change, ball, hand, ring, after, said, look, true
2) Read these four Italian words written in IPA aloud. Pay close attention to the vowels.
/wmini/, /stte/, /porta/, /kultura/

Consonants - their features & IPA symbols

Where you pronounce the consonant
Consonants have features, as well, but not the same features we used to distinguish vowels. First,
let's consider where in your mouth you pronounce the consonant sound. If you press your lips
together (like "b" in "blip"), you make a labial sound. If instead you press your tongue against
your teeth (like "th" in "thin"), you make a dental sound. Against the gum ridge behind your
teeth (as "s" in "speech"), and you produce an alveolar sound. Against the roof of your mouth
(like "sh" in "ash"), and the sound is palatal. Up against the back of your mouth (like "g" in
"grammar"), and you articulate a velar sound. This is called the consonant phoneme's place of
articulation, in other words, where you form the phoneme. Dental, alveolar, palatal and velar all
describe places of articulation.
How you pronounce the consonant
Then, consider that you can produce different types of sounds at a certain place in your mouth.
If, again, you press your two lips together, you can press your lips together very tightly and
release a popping /p/ sound. You could, instead, keep your lips lightly together and release a
steady flow of air, which sounds not quite like an English /f/ (it's the sound of the Japanese "f" in
"furigana"). Both sounds are labial, which describes their place of articulation. But the sharp,
popping sound is a stop (also called plosive, from Latin for "beat" or "slap"), and the less
restricted, consistent flow of air makes a fricative sound (from Latin for "rub").
Now, let's change the place of articulation by pressing your tongue against the gum ridge behind
your upper teeth. If you make a strong plosive/stop sound on your gum ridge, you make a /t/

sound. If you let gentle stream of air pass between your tongue and gums, you pronounce an /s/
sound instead. This feature is known as manner of articulation, in other words, how you form the
phoneme.
Whether or not you voice the consonant
The final consonant feature we'll learn about has to do with the vibration of your vocal chords.
Notice that when you hum, your throat vibrates, but when you whisper quietly, it doesn't. Your
"voicebox", the vocal folds on your larynx, vibrate when you make voiced sounds (like /z/, /d/,
and /b/), but stay still when you pronounce voiceless sounds (like /s/, /t/ and /p/). This feature is
called voicing. In fact, it's safe to say that the only difference between /s/ and /z/ is the voicing
of /z/ (the same holds for /t/ & /d/ or /p/ & /b/), making these phonemes voiced-voiceless pairs.
Combining the three features to identify specific consonants
Like with vowels, we can't identify specific consonants based on voicing, place of articulation or
manner of articulation alone. We must treat these features as building blocks of consonants.
Certain combinations of the three features produce specific, identifiable consonants. For
example, instead of speaking about "the consonant in the word thing", we can accurately
describe the "voiceless dental fricative". You can consider the relationship between these features
as a chart with three axes, with place of articulation on the x-axis, manner of articulation on the
y-axis and voicing as the z-axis. In the table below, relevant sounds are given as "voiceless,
voiced" pairs.
labial
nasal
m
plosive
p, b
fricative
f, v
affricate
approximant
lateral

dental

alveolar
n
t, d
s, z
t, d
r
l

palatal

velar

k, g
x

glottal

Recognizing IPA consonants in English & other languages

Most of the sounds in the table above are easily recognizable in everyday English words. Here
are some clear examples:
IPA symbols
/m/
/n/
//
//
//
/s/

example words
more
none
singing (no actual /g/ sound)
thing (voiceless)
that (voiced)
said

/z/
//
//
/x/
/h/
/t/
/d/
/j/

prize
sharp
pleasure
Scottish loch ("hard H" sound)
hear
cheek
jaw
yes

Notice that the affricates /t/ and /d/ are combinations of two phonemes heard as a single
sound. The glottal stop is often described as a catch in the throat (the sound found between "uhuh", the negative counterpart to "uh-huh), You can hear this glottal stop "catch" before initial
vowels in English: "every" /vrij/.
English speakers have a tougher time with plosives. Specifically, speakers tend to pronounce the
voiceless plosives with a puff of air, really an /h/ sound: "take" starts with a sequence of
phonemes like /t/ + /h/ rather than just a bare /t/. That aspiration (h- or aitch-sound) is absent
when you pronounce /p/ in speak, /t/ in stay and /k/ in sky, so imitate that sound to pronounce /p/
/t/ /k/ as "pure" voiceless plosives. You shouldn't have any trouble with their voiced
counterparts /b/ (be), /d/ (day) and /g/ (guy).
As you further develop your comparison skills and your good ear, you can notice these
consonant phonemes in foreign languages. Spanish plosives "p" and "t" sound like /p/ and /t/
(without the puff of air as I described above). Italian "c" sounds like /k/ before /a/, /o/, /u/ but /t/
in front of /e/ and /i/. Japanese has the affricates /ts/ and /dz/, which aren't heard as single sounds
in English but can be imitated easily by stringing together /t/ + /s/ and /d/ + /z/. The alveolar
tap // of Spanish, Portuguese or Italian /r/ in "caro" is the same sound of American English
"later" or "stutter".
More precise definitions and other features
Place and manner of articulation can be pinpointed more scientifically and exactly than I have
done. The sounds // and //, which I label as palatal, are actually "postalveolar" (slightly above
and behind the alveolar ridge). You can deepen your understanding by considering which part of
your tongue presses against which part of your mouth - the tip of the tongue is involved in
coronal sounds (including dental and alveolar), while the body and back of the tongue articulates
dorsal phonemes (including velar). Labial sounds emphasize the lips rather than the tongue
(including bilabial sounds like /b/ and labiodental ones like /v/). Radical and glottal sounds are
made with the base of your tongue and the back of your throat.
Practice Exercise
1) Identify every consonant phoneme in the words below. First, list the three features of each
consonant, then write each consonant in IPA. Pay attention to pronunciation over spelling!

breaching, houses, of, thing, defamation, announce

2) Read these four Brazilian Portuguese words written in IPA aloud. Pay close attention to the
consonants.
/tu/, /idadi/, /vti/, /s/, /xau/

Syllables
So far, we've studied vowels and consonants separately. We've even broken them down into their
component parts called "features". Yet speakers don't tend to pronounce consonant or vowel
sounds in isolation, but together. We won't just jump from sounds to words and sentences. We
can first organize speech sounds into beats or units. More specifically, speakers of all languages
put vowels and consonants together into speech units known as syllables.
Structure and types of syllables
Syllables tend to be built around a vowel. That vowel is the heart of the syllable, called its
nucleus. We may abbreviate vowel as V (V stands for any vowel).
Clearly, people don't just speak in vowels. Consonants surround the nucleus. A syllable may have
consonants before the nucleus and consonants after the nucleus. As with vowels, we may
abbreviate consonant as C. Consonants before the vowel are part of the syllable's onset.
Consonants after the vowel form the syllable's coda (Italian for "tail").
The English syllable "dab" (which also happens to be a word) has one consonant sound before
the vowel and one after: /db/. So, the structure of that syllable is CVC. But that's not the only
syllable type:
structure
V
(CC)CV
VC(CC)
(CC)CVC(CC)

English examples
ah!
nah! (for "no")
acts
splints

IPA
//
/n/
/kts/
/splnts/

notes
no consonants in onset or coda
consonants in onset, none in coda
consonants in coda, none in onset
consonants in onset and coda

Now, other languages have different constraints on their syllables. Specifically, English can
"overload" on consonants, while languages often allow only much simpler syllables. In standard
Japanese, there are only four possible syllable types:
structure
V
CV
CV:

Japanese
examples

do
d

IPA

notes

/o:/
/do/
/do:/

no consonant in onset or coda

consonant in onset + short vowel
consonant in onset + long vowel

CVn

dan

/dan/

consonant in onset, /n/ in coda

Complex vowels and consonants

Up to this point, we haven't really considered more complicated vowel combinations.
Diphthongs involve a vowel & vowel or vowel & glide in the nucleus of a syllable (glides
include the "y-sound" /j/ and the "w-sound" /w/). What English speakers call "long vowels" also
represent diphthongs under the guise of a single letter: "state" /stejt/, "time" /thajm/ and
"rune" /ruwn/ versus "stat" /stt/, "thin" /n/ and "run" /rn/.
"True" long vowel phonemes, on the other hand, involve holding the nucleus' vowel sound out
for a longer amount of time (/a:/ and /e:/ are roughly twice as long as /a/ and /e/, but have the
same quality). English speakers may hold vowels longer in interjections like "aaah!" (/:/ or even
/::/), but we don't use length to distinguish vowels. Japanese speakers, on the other hand, do:
/to/ is distinct from /to:/ in Japanese.
Long consonants may be thought of as doubled or geminate (Latin for "twinned"). While English
speakers tend to write double consonants in spelling, we almost always pronounce them as
single, which comes across in the IPA: "bigger" /bgr/. In some languages, like Italian, double
consonants are held out longer, and this is represented both in spelling and in IPA: bellissima
/bellissima/. English speakers, in fact, may do this with certain consonants when the last sound of
one word matches the first sound of the next: "thick crust" /kkhrst/.
Combining syllables
Once we've grasped the basics of syllables, the next step is to combine them, to string them
together. How else can we account for long stretches of continuous speech?
It's important to keep syllable structure in mind, since syllable divisions are based on the syllable
structure of a language. We may even represent syllable divisions in IPA with a low dot or period
between syllables: "hand over" /hn.dow.vr/, "astronomical" /s.tr.n.m.kl/.
Practice Exercise
1) Take a look at the list of words and phrases below. Transliterate each word or phrase into IPA
in a way that represents your pronunciation. Refer to the consonant and vowel sections above as
needed.
hint, language, reading, learned, he says, uh-oh, uneven
2) Represent each word or phrase above as a string of consonants (C) and vowels (V).
3) Finally, break the IPA strings into syllables the way I represented "hand over" as
/hn.dow.vr/.

Words, phrases & sentences

We've now covered the fundamental aspects of IPA you'll need to analyze and understand
individual sounds and syllables. However, speech doesn't stop at the level of sounds and
syllables.
Utterances and streams of sound
If you record yourself speaking with a computer program that allows you to view the amplitude
and frequency of the sound waves, and you'll notice that you don't speak in words or even
sentences the way you write. You might pause between phrases and sometimes even in the
middle of words, while your voice flows right past expected word and sentence breaks. When
talking about sound and pronunciation, utterance becomes a more fundamental concept, since it
stands for a single stream of speech sounds.
A few thoughts arise from this "streaming" concept of sounds. First, you will notice that speakers
of all languages don't distinguish invididual, distinct words in rapid speech. It follows that we
don't use conventions like spaces between words, punctuation or capital letters without good
reason. We may use a period to separate syllables or spaces to help distinguish words when
reading the IPA, but neither of these is essential. Still, in the end, "we could write this sentence
like this": /wijkhdrajtssntnslajks/.
Second, the barriers between sounds must be somewhat blurred. This second point explains why
sounds assimilate to (become more like) nearby sounds:
phoneme
/n/
/n/

English examples IPA

onto
/ntu/
inbox
/mbks/

notes
/n/ and /t/ are both alveolar
/n/ turns labial before adjacent /b/

This brings up a concept I plan to tackle in the next series (introduction to phonology). In the
examples above, we don't say that the /n/ has split into two new phonemes, one /n/ and the
other /m/. Instead, we point to the concept of an allophone. Allophones account for the various
ways the "same sound" (as heard by speakers) shows up in speech: /n/ is pronounced [n] in the
word "into" but sometimes comes out as [m] in the word "input". In this way, we can propose [n]
and [m] as two allophones of one underlying phoneme /n/.
Features of longer streams of sound
We haven't yet considered the kinds of features that might apply to longer speech - to words,
phrases and utterances. At this point, we can only transcribe strings of individual sounds, but
those would be fairly monotonous if read aloud.
One very important feature is accent. One type of accent, called stress, involves emphasizing one
or more syllables by speaking them louder than surrounding syllables. In many languages, like
English and German, words normally have a fixed stressed syllable (consider "ho-tel" versus

"host-tel"). In IPA, stress can be written with an apostrophe before the stressed syllable:
/how.'thl/ versus /'hs.tl/. But this also holds when we look at longer
utterances: /'wijkhd'rajts'sntnslajk's/.
In Japanese, stress doesn't play this kind of role. Instead, Japanese speakers raise and lower the
pitch, or tone. This is called pitch accent or intonation. "Kyto" /kjo:to/ starts with high, falling
pitch in the first syllable, and ends in a lower pitch in the second syllable. In IPA, pitch may be
indicated by accent marks (rising pitch //, high/stable // or falling //), up/down arrows, sloped
arrows or hooked bars.
Sometimes features don't work on the level of words but on the level of sentences and "complete
thoughts". Features at this level are collectively called prosody. English speakers don't use
intonation to distinguish syllables, but to perform larger functions like distinguishing a question
from an exclamation from a simple declaration: "Are you happy?" /'r juw 'hphij/ versus
"You are happy." /juw 'r 'hphij/. Stress may also play a prosodic function: "I didn't
learn anything" versus "I didn't learn anything".
Practice Exercise
1) Oops! As I transcribed these phrases into IPA, I forgot to assimilate certain consonants. Look
at each phrase, consider how it sounds in flowing speech, and correct expected assimilations.
/'khnkwst/, /s'p/, /'sz'jrz/, /n'phrsn/, /bow'sts/
2) Two English speakers read the same phrase differently. I captured their pronunciation below in
IPA. First, identify and place the missing features of stress accent and intonation. Second, spell
out the original phrase these speakers read in standard written English. Third, based on your
judgment, what kind of speaker said a)? What kind of speaker said b)?
a) /ntnnlfnethkhlfbth/
b) /nrnnlfnkhlfb/
3) Listen carefully to these sound files of Italian words and phrases. Transcribe them as best you
can into IPA.
phrase 1, phrase 2, phrase 3

An extra challenge
Before you run off to brag to your friends that you've completed this course on IPA, I leave you
with a continuing challenge.
On this site, I have a number of "learn to pronounce language X" or "language X pronunciation"
guides with explanations and audio files. I challenge you to complete one of those pages and
transcribe every word you hear into IPA as accurately as possible. If you need help, look up "X

language phonology" in Wikipedia - that resource usually has all the IPA you'll need to start
transcribing a specific language.
But don't stop there. I recommend that you start employing your IPA skills in any situation
relevant to language learning or pronunciation. Using the foundation you have gained here
coupled with curiosity and vigor for spoken language, you will master the phonetic alphabet in
no time.

Answers to the practice exercises

Practice Exercise 1 (Vowels)
1) ch/e/nge (mid front), b//ll (open back), h//nd (open front), r/i/ng (close front), //ft//r
(open front & mid central), s//d (mid front), l//k (close back), tr/u/ (close back)
2) /wmini/, /stte/, /porta/, /kultura/
Practice Exercise 2 (Consonants)
1) /br/ ea /t/ i // (voiced bilabial plosive, voiced alveolar approximate, voiceless
palatal/postalveolar affricate, voiced velar nasal)
/h/ ou /z/ e /z/ (voiceless glottal fricative, voiced alveolar fricative, voiced alveolar fricative)
o /v/ (voiced labiodental fricative)
// i // (voiceless dental fricative, voiced velar nasal)
/d/ e /f/ a /m/ a // io /n/ (voiced alveolar plosive, voiceless labiodental fricative, voiced bilabial
nasal, voiceless postalveolar fricative, voiced alveolar nasal)
a /n/ ou /ns/ e (voiced alveolar nasal, voiced alveolar nasal, voiceless alveolar fricative)
2) /tu/, /idadi/, /vti/, /s/, /xau/
Practice Exercise 3 (Syllables)
1) /hnt(h)/, /lejgwd/, /rijdi/, Amer. /lrnd/ or Brit. /l:nt(h)/, /hijsz/, /ow/, /nijvn/
2) CVC(C), CVCCCCVCC, CVCCVC, Amer. CVCCC or Brit. CV(:)CC(C), CVCCVC,
CVCVC, CVCVCCVC
3) /hnth/, /lej.gwd/, /rij.di/, Amer. /lrnd/ or Brit. /l:nt(h)/, /hij.sz/, /.ow/, /.nij.vn/
Practice Exercise 4 (Words & utterances)

1) /'khkwst/, /'p/, /'s'rz/, /m'phrsn/, /bows'sts/. (Whether you perform every one
of these assimilations in English will depend on your dialect, but the first one, /nk/ > /k/, is
fairly universal.)
2) First: /nt'nnlf'nethkh'lfbth/ and /nr'nnlf'nkh'lfb/
Second: "International Phonetic Alphabet"
Third: Speaker a) sounds like a British English speaker, while speaker b) sounds like an
American English speaker.
3) /pjuk'kao/, /an'napoli/, /'sketso/