English Phonology

To increase the accuracy for pronunciation of any english word, it is the best way to refer the standard dictionaries. Almost every standard dictionaries keeps the phonetic transcription of the words, which helps you to keep track, what exactly is the pronunciation of that particular word. Even, Nowadays the smartphone apps of dictionaries come with voice pronunciation utility, but having knowledge of these phonemes can make you nearer to the standard accent.

The phonology is the study of sounds. The english language contains its own sounds, which may differ with other languages. Understanding, these sounds makes you able to know, the families of words, where you are wrong from a long time. Let me clear this, by taking an example of a word THREE. Indians do not have the english sound /θ/ in hindi language, so they just round the sound /θ/ into 'th' and pronounce it incorrectly.

Here I am listing the english phonemes.

 To print the chart, use the printable PDF version.

vowels    IPA examples ʌ cup, luck ɑ: arm, father                                                         æ cat, black e met, bed ə away, cinema ɜ:ʳ turn, learn ɪ hit, sitting i: see, heat ɒ hot, rock ɔ: call, four ʊ put, could u: blue, food aɪ five, eye aʊ now, out eɪ say, eight oʊ go, home ɔɪ boy, join eəʳ where, air ɪəʳ near, here ʊəʳ pure, tourist

consonants IPA examples b bad, lab d did, lady f find, if g give, flag h how, hello j yes, yellow k cat, back l leg, little m man, lemon n no, ten ŋ sing, finger p pet, map r red, try s sun, miss ʃ she, crash t tea, getting tʃ check, church θ think, both ð this, mother v voice, five w wet, window z zoo, lazy ʒ pleasure, vision dʒ just, large