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Vowels IPA
| Mouth Position | Close | Near Close | Close Mid | Mid | Open Mid | Near Open | Open | Tongue Position | Front | 1
beat
| [ɪ]1
bit
| [e]**2
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| [ɛ]2
bet
| [æ]
bat
| [a]**
| Central |
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| [ə]3
above
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| Back | *
food
| [ʊ]
put, good
| [o]*4
poke
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| [ʌ]3, [ɔ]*
cut, talk
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| [ɑ]5
not, father
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| Diphthongs | [aɪ]
fight
| [ɔɪ]
coin
| [aʊ]
now
| [eɪ]
bake
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| With r | [ər]6
butter
| [ɑr]
start
| [ɛr]
fair
| [ɪr]
near
| [ɔr]
north
| [ʊr]
tour, cure
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Notes:
* starred are Rounded Vowels (rounding the lips).
** not used in American English by itself.
- In British English and [ɪ] were written as [iː] and respectively. Now in the 14th Edition it is written as [iː] and [ɪ] repectively. The sound will confuse most students changing from British IPA to American IPA.
- [ɛ] for British English will look like [e]. It is incorrect but accepted.
- [ə] and [ʌ] are technically the same sound. Most will say the difference is that [ʌ] is for stressed syllables and [ə] is for unstressed syllables.
- [o] for British English will look like the diphthong [əʊ].
- British English will make a distinction between [ɑ] and [ɒ]. They use [ɑ] for father and [ɒ] for not.
- [ər] and [ɜr] are extremely similar. Typically [ər] is used exclusively in most dictionaries.
American Consonants IPAVoiceless | Voiced | Voiceless | Voiced | Voiceless | Voiced | [p]2
pen
|
web
| [f]
off, photo
| [v]
of, have
| [tʃ]2
church
| [dʒ]
joy, edge
| [t]2
two, bet
| [d]
do, odd
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see, city
| [z]
zoo, rose
| [θ]
thing, teeth
| [ð]
this, father
| [k]2
cat, queen
| [ɡ]
go, get
| [ʃ]
she, sure
| [ʒ]
pleasure, beige
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| Other Consonants | Tip: If you put your hand in front of your mouth, you should feel more air when saying voiceless sounds than when saying voiced sounds. Also, voiced sounds will vibrate in the throat and voiceless will not. | Nasal | Semi-vowels |
| [m]
mike, lamb
| [l]1
left, bell
| [w]
we, queen
| [n]
no, tin
| [r]
run, very
| [h]
ham
| [ŋ]
sing, drink
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| [j]
yes
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Notes:
- [l] will sometimes look like [əl] at the end of a word.
- [p], [t], [k], [tʃ] will sometimes be written as [ph], [th], [kh], [tʃh] to show that the consonant ends with the [h] sound.
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