ENGLISH BARRIER BREAKER
IELTS Exam Preparation
Introduction to the IPA
If the IPA is completely new to you, then you came to the right place. Allow me to explain what the IPA is, what you need to know about it, and why you should learn it!
What is the IPA?
The IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It was created by a French linguist, Paul Passy, in 1888. It is a system of symbols or letters (an alphabet) that represent specific sounds (phonemes).
The IPA is organized into a chart of phonetic symbols (sound symbols) that each represent one specific sound. In English, this chart includes 44 phonetic symbols and is organized into 3 sections. Although the IPA has hundreds of symbols and is used in all languages, we only use 44 in English, as English only has 44 sounds (phonemes).
NOTE: There are lots of terms that are used when studying pronunciation. If you want to learn these, please see this: glossary of pronunciation terms.
**This chart looks pretty confusing the first time you see it, but it is not as bad as it looks.**
Description of The Graph:
On the left there is a mouth diagram chart with 12 different mouth positions, this is helpful because the shape of your mouth impacts your pronunciation a lot. On the right there is a chart of 44 phonetic symbols, the top is labelled phonetics, and the bottom is labelled diphthongs. The 44 sounds are put into groups based on their mouth position, and is labelled above with a number 1 to 12. The Phonetic symbols are shown in red circles with an example word next to is so you can see what sound it makes. The symbols on the top are consonants, the ones in the middle are vowels (single vowels), and on the bottom there are diphthongs (double vowels).
The three sections of this chart are: consonants, vowels, and diphthongs
What is the difference between a vowel and a consonant?
A consonant sound requires you to use one of your articulators (your tongue, lips, teeth, or throat) to stop or restrict the airflow in order to pronounce the sound. Vowels, on the other hand, do not require that, you just change the way your mouth is positioned. For example, some consonants are b, k, s, v, and some vowels are a, e, i, o, u. If you try to say these sounds you should see a difference.
What are diphthongs?
Diphthongs are also called double vowels. For example, some vowel sounds are actually made by putting two vowel sounds together. Try saying the word “cake” slowly. The a-sound in the word “cake” is actually made with two sounds, it uses the soft e-sound (like bed) and the strong e-sound (like need) together to make the strong a-sound in cake. Try playing with these sounds and see if you can understand it.
Because there are two types of vowels, you will also hear them called single vowels and double vowels.
What are diacritics?
Diacritics are extra symbols written above, below, or next two a letter that indicate different pronunciation. For example: café.
The IPA has two diacritics that you will see a lot. One looks like a colon, its two dots that go next to a vowel sound and mean that the vowel sound is pronounced a little bit longer than others. The second looks like an apostrophe, it means that the stress of a word is going to be on the following syllable (that means that the next vowel sound will be the louder part of the word).
Helpful tools to help you with learning and using the IPA:
This website is a word translator. You type any English word into the text-box and it will give you an IPA translation of the word, it will also provide audio pronunciation as well.
If you don't have an IPA keyboard or don't know how to type the IPA, you can use this website which will allow you to copy and paste the IPA symbols. This may be useful for taking notes or practicing.
These flashcards
These flashcards were made by me, they can be used to practice remembering the symbols.
What is the purpose of the IPA?
The IPA exists as a way to provide a simplified pronunciation system of letters. The IPA assigns one letter to each sound, these will never change and they can be used for any language. So if you want to get serious about improving your pronunciation, or want to learn other languages, this will be invaluable for you.
Why learn the IPA?
A lot of languages, including English, do not use a sound-based spelling system. This means that the spelling of a word will tell you very little about how to pronounce it. Therefore, the IPA is actually essential unless you are a native, and honestly, even native english speakers make pronunciation mistakes with new words, so the IPA is essential if you want to pronounce words properly.
Additionally, all dictionaries include an IPA transcription of all the words. So knowing the IPA will help you to learn vocabulary and you will be able to pronounce ANY word, even if you have never seen or heard it before.
Knowing the IPA is the number one most beneficial thing to know if you want to improve your pronunciation. If you learn nothing else about pronunciation, I recommend learning the IPA!
