အကူအညီ:IPA

help installing IPA-compatible fonts အတွက် Help:Special characters § IPA symbols ကို ကြည့်ပါ။

a basic introduction to using IPA written for English readers အတွက် Help:IPA/Introduction ကို ကြည့်ပါ။

Here is a basic key to the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. For the smaller set of symbols that is sufficient for English, see Help:IPA for English. Several rare IPA symbols are not included; these are found in the main IPA article. For the Manual of Style guideline for pronunciation, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation).

For each IPA symbol, an English example is given where possible; here "RP" stands for Received Pronunciation. The foreign languages that are used to illustrate additional sounds are primarily the ones most likely to be familiar to English speakers, French, German, and Spanish. For symbols not covered by those, recourse is taken to the populous languages Mandarin Chinese, Hindustani, Arabic, and Russian. For sounds still not covered, other smaller but well-known languages are used, such as Swahili, Turkish, and Zulu.

The left-hand column displays the symbols like this: open front unrounded vowel . Click on the speaker icon to hear the sound; click on the symbol itself for a dedicated article with a more complete description and examples from multiple languages. All the sounds are spoken more than once, and the consonant sounds are spoken once followed by a vowel and once between vowels.

Main symbols

The symbols are arranged by similarity to letters of the Latin alphabet. Symbols which do not resemble any Latin letter are placed at the end.

Symbol	Examples	Description
^ top A
Open front unrounded vowel	Mandarin 他 tā, German Mann	For many English speakers, the first part of the ow sound in cow. Found in some dialects of English in cat or father.
Open central unrounded vowel	American English ah, Spanish casa, French patte
Open front unrounded vowel	German Aachen, French gare	Long [a].
Near-open central vowel	RP cut, German Kaiserslautern	(In transcriptions of English, [ɐ] is usually written ⟨ʌ⟩.)
Open back unrounded vowel	Finnish Linna, Dutch bad
Open back unrounded vowel	RP father, French pâte	Long [ɑ].
Nasal vowel	French Caen, sans, temps	Nasalized [ɑ].
Open back rounded vowel	RP cot	Like [ɑ], but with the lips slightly rounded.
Open-mid back unrounded vowel	American English cut	Like [ɔ], but without the lips being rounded. (When ⟨ʌ⟩ is used for English, it may really be [ɐ] or [ɜ].)
Near-open front unrounded vowel	RP cat
^ top B
Voiced bilabial plosive	English babble
Voiced bilabial implosive	Swahili bwana	Like a [b] said with a gulp. See implosive consonants.
Bilabial trill		Like the brrr sound made when cold.
Voiced bilabial fricative	Spanish la Bamba, Kinyarwanda abana "children"	Like [b], but with the lips not quite touching.
^ top C
Voiceless palatal plosive	Turkish kebap "kebab", Czech stín "shadow", Greek και "and"	Between English tune (RP) and cute. Sometimes used instead for [tʃ] in languages like Hindi.
Voiceless palatal fricative	German Ich	More of a y-coloration (more palatal) than [x]. Some English speakers have a similar sound in huge. To produce this sound, try whispering loudly the word "ye" as in "Hear ye!".
Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative	Mandarin Xi'an, Polish ściana	More y-like than [ʃ]; something like English she.
Open-mid back rounded vowel	see under O
^ top D
Voiced alveolar plosive	English dad
Voiced alveolar implosive	Swahili Dodoma	Like [d] said with a gulp.
Voiced retroflex plosive	American English harder	Like [d] with the tongue curled or pulled back.
Voiced dental fricative	English the, bathe
Voiced alveolar affricate	English adds, Italian zero
Voiced postalveolar affricate	English judge
တမ်းပလိတ်:Error-small	English mojtear
Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	Polish niedźwiedź "bear"	Like [dʒ], but with more of a y-sound.
Voiced retroflex affricate	Polish dżem "jam"	Like [dʒ] with the tongue curled or pulled back.
^ top E
Close-mid front unrounded vowel	Spanish fe; French clé
Close-mid front unrounded vowel	German Klee	Long [e]. Similar to English hey, before the y sets in.
Mid central vowel	English above, Hindi ठग [ʈʰəɡ] (thug) "thief"	(Only occurs in English when not stressed.)
R-colored vowel#R-colored vowel	American English runner
Open-mid front unrounded vowel	English bet
[ ɛ̃ ]	French Agen, vin, main; Polish mięso	Nasalized [ɛ].
Open-mid central unrounded vowel	RP bird (long)
[ ɝ ]	American English bird
^ top F
Voiceless labiodental fricative	English fun
Voiced palatal plosive	see under J
Voiced palatal implosive	see under J
^ top G
Voiced velar plosive	English gag	(Should look like . No different from a Latin "g")
Voiced velar implosive	Swahili Uganda	Like [ɡ] said with a gulp.
Voiced uvular plosive		Like [ɡ], but further back, in the throat. Found in Persian and some Arabic dialects for /q/, as in Gaddafi.
Voiced postalveolar fricative	see under Z	English beige.
^ top H
Voiceless glottal fricative	American English house
Voiced glottal fricative	English ahead, when said quickly.
[ ʰ ]		The extra puff of air in English top [tʰɒp] compared to stop [stɒp], or to French or Spanish [t].
Voiceless pharyngeal fricative	Arabic محمد Muhammad	Far down in the throat, like [h], but stronger.
တမ်းပလိတ်:Error-small	see under U
[ ɮ ]	see under L
^ top I
Close front unrounded vowel	French ville, Spanish Valladolid
Close front unrounded vowel	English sea	Long [i].
Near-close near-front unrounded vowel	English sit
Close central unrounded vowel	Russian ты "you"	Often used for unstressed English roses.
^ top J
Palatal approximant	English yes, hallelujah, German Junge
[ ʲ ]	Russian Ленин [ˈlʲenʲɪn]	Indicates a sound is more y-like.
Voiced palatal fricative	Spanish cayo (some dialects)	Like [j], but stronger.
Voiced palatal plosive	Turkish gör "see", Czech díra "hole"	Between English dew (RP) and argue. Sometimes used instead for [dʒ] in languages like Hindi.
Voiced palatal implosive	Swahili jambo	Like [ɟ] said with a gulp.
^ top K
Voiceless velar plosive	English kick, skip
^ top L
Alveolar lateral approximant	English leaf
Velarized alveolar lateral approximant	English wool Russian малый [ˈmɑɫɨj] "small"	"Dark" el.
Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative	Welsh llwyd [ɬʊɪd] "grey" Zulu hlala [ɬaːla] "sit"	By touching roof of mouth with tongue and giving a giving a quick breath out. Found in Welsh placenames like Llangollen and Llanelli and Nelson Mandela's Xhosa name Rolihlahla.
Retroflex lateral approximant		Like [l] with the tongue curled or pulled back.
တမ်းပလိတ်:Error-small		A flapped [l], like [l] and [ɾ] said together.
Voiced alveolar lateral fricative	Zulu dla "eat"	Rather like [l] and [ʒ], or [l] and [ð], said together.
^ top M
Bilabial nasal	English mime
Labiodental nasal	English symphony	Like [m], but lips touch teeth as they do in [f].
[ ɯ ]	see under W
Voiceless labio-velar approximant	see under W
^ top N
Alveolar nasal	English nun
Velar nasal	English sing
Palatal nasal	Spanish Peña, French champagne	Rather like English canyon.
Retroflex nasal	Hindi वरुण [ʋəruɳ] Varuna	Like [n] with the tongue curled or pulled back.
Uvular nasal	Castilian Spanish Don Juan [doɴˈχwan]	Like [ŋ], but further back, in the throat.
^ top O
Close-mid back rounded vowel	Spanish no, French eau
Close-mid back rounded vowel	German Boden, French Vosges	Long [o]. Somewhat reminiscent of English no.
Open-mid back rounded vowel	German Oldenburg, French Garonne
Open-mid back rounded vowel	RP law, French Limoges	Long [ɔ].
Nasal vowel	French Lyon, son; Polish wąż	Nasalized [ɔ].
Close-mid front rounded vowel	French feu, bœufs	Like [e], but with the lips rounded like [o].
Close-mid front rounded vowel	German Goethe, French Deûle, neutre	Long [ø].
Close-mid central rounded vowel	Swedish dum	Halfway between [o] and [ø]. Similar to [ʊ] but with the tongue slightly more down and front.
Open-mid front rounded vowel	French bœuf, seul, German Göttingen	Like [ɛ], but with the lips rounded like [ɔ].
Open-mid front rounded vowel	French œuvre, heure	Long [œ].
Nasal vowel	French brun, parfum	Nasalized [œ].
Voiceless dental fricative	see under other
Voiceless bilabial fricative	see under other
^ top P
Voiceless bilabial plosive	English pip
^ top Q
Voiceless uvular plosive	Arabic Qur’ān	Like [k], but further back, in the throat.
^ top R
Alveolar trill	Spanish perro, Scots borrow	"Rolled R". (Generally used for English [ɹ] when there's no need to be precise.)
Alveolar tap	Spanish pero, Tagalog daliri, Malay kabar, American English kitty/kiddie	"Flapped R".
Uvular trill		A trill in the back of the throat. Found for /r/ in some conservative registers of French.
Retroflex flap	Hindi साड़ी [sɑːɽiː] "sari"	Like flapped [ɾ], but with the tongue curled back.
Alveolar approximant	RP borrow
Retroflex approximant	American English borrow, butter	Like [ɹ], but with the tongue curled or pulled back, as pronounced by many English speakers.
Voiced uvular fricative	French Paris, German Riemann	Said back in the throat, but not trilled.
^ top S
Voiceless alveolar fricative	English sass
Voiceless postalveolar fricative	English shoe
Sj-sound	Swedish sju
Voiceless retroflex fricative	Mandarin 少林 (Shàolín), Russian Пушкин (Pushkin)	Acoustically similar to [ʃ], but with the tongue curled or pulled back.
^ top T
Voiceless alveolar plosive	English tot, stop
Voiceless retroflex plosive	Hindi ठग [ʈʰəɡ] (thug) "thief"	Like [t], but with the tongue curled or pulled back.
Voiceless alveolar affricate	English cats, Russian царь tsar
Voiceless postalveolar affricate	English church
Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	Mandarin 北京 Beijing , Polish ciebie "you"	Like [tʃ], but with more of a y-sound.
Voiceless retroflex affricate	Mandarin zh, Polish czas	Like [tʃ] with the tongue curled or pulled back.
^ top U
Close back rounded vowel	French vous "you"
Close back rounded vowel	French Rocquencourt, German Schumacher, close to RP food	Long [u].
Near-close near-back vowel	English foot, German Bundesrepublik
Close central rounded vowel	Australian English food (long)	Like [ɨ], but with the lips rounded as for [u].
တမ်းပလိတ်:Error-small	French lui	Like [j] and [w] said together.
Close back unrounded vowel	see under W
^ top V
Voiced labiodental fricative	English verve
Labiodental approximant	Hindi वरुण [ʋəruɳə] "Varuna"	Between [v] and [w]. Used by some Germans and Russians for v/w, and by some speakers of British English for r.
Voiced velar fricative	Arabic / Swahili ghali "expensive", Spanish suegro	Sounds rather like French [ʁ] or between [ɡ] and [h].
Close-mid back unrounded vowel	Mandarin Hénán	Like [o] but without the lips rounded, something like a cross of [ʊ] and [ʌ].
[ ʌ ]	see under A
^ top W
Voiced labial-velar approximant	English wow
[ ʷ ]	English rain [ɹʷeɪn]	Indicates a sound has lip rounding, quick.
Voiceless labio-velar approximant	what (some dialects)	like [h] and [w] said together
Close back unrounded vowel	Turkish kayık "caïque"	Like [u], but with the lips flat; something like [ʊ].
Velar approximant	Spanish agua
^ top X
Voiceless velar fricative	Scottish English loch, German Bach, Russian хороший [xɐˈroʂɨj] "good", Spanish joven	between [k] and [h]
Voiceless uvular fricative	northern Standard Dutch Scheveningen, Castilian Spanish Don Juan [doɴˈχwan]	Like [x], but further back , in the throat. Some German and Arabic speakers have [χ] for [x].
^ top Y
Close front rounded vowel	French rue	Like [i], but with the lips rounded as for [u].
Close front rounded vowel	German Bülow, French sûr	Long [y].
Near-close near-front rounded vowel	German Eisenhüttenstadt	Like [ɪ], but with the lips rounded as for [ʊ].
Palatal lateral approximant	Italian tagliatelle	Like [l], but more y-like. Rather like English volume.
တမ်းပလိတ်:Error-small	see under U
Close-mid back unrounded vowel	see under V
[ ɣ ]	see under V
^ top Z
Voiced alveolar fricative	English zoos
Voiced postalveolar fricative	English vision, French journal
Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative	formal Russian жжёшь [ʑːoʂ] "you burn", Polish źle	More y-like than [ʒ], something like beigey.
Voiced retroflex fricative	Mandarin 人民日报 Rénmín Rìbào "People's Daily", Russian жир "fat"	Like [ʒ] with the tongue curled or pulled back.
[ ɮ ]	see under L
^ top Other
Voiceless dental fricative	English thigh, bath
Voiceless bilabial fricative	Japanese 富士 [ɸɯdʑi] Fuji, Māori [ˌɸaːɾeːˈnuiː] wharenui	Like [p], but with the lips not quite touching
Glottal stop	English uh-oh, Hawai‘i, German die Angst	The 'glottal stop', a catch in the breath. For some people, found in button [ˈbʌʔn̩], or between vowels across words: Deus ex machina [ˌdeɪəsˌʔɛksˈmɑːkɨnə]; in some nonstandard dialects, in a apple [ʌˈʔæpl̩].
တမ်းပလိတ်:Error-small	Arabic عربي carabī "Arabic"	A light sound deep in the throat.
Dental click	English tsk-tsk! or tut-tut!, Zulu icici "earring"	(The English click used for disapproval.) Several distinct sounds, written as digraphs, including [ kǀ ], [ ɡǀ ], [ ŋǀ ]. The Zimbabwean MP Ncube has this click in his name, as did Cetshwayo.
Alveolar lateral click	English tchick! tchick!, Zulu ixoxo "frog"	(The English click used to urge on a horse.) Several distinct sounds, written as digraphs, including [ kǁ ], [ ɡǁ ], [ ŋǁ ]. Found in the name of the Xhosa.
Postalveolar click	Zulu iqaqa "polecat"	(The English click used to imitate the trotting of a horse.) A hollow popping sound, like a cork pulled from a bottle. Several distinct sounds, written as digraphs, including [ kǃ ], [ ɡǃ ], [ ŋǃ ].

• ^1 ^2 These symbols are officially written with a tie linking them (e.g. t͡ʃ), and are also sometimes written as single characters (e.g. ʧ) though the latter convention is no longer official. They are written without ligatures here to ensure correct display in all browsers.

Diacritic marks

All diacritics are here shown on a carrier letter such as the vowel a.

Symbol	Example	Description
[ ˈa ]	pronunciation [pɹ̥əʊ̯ˌnɐnsiˈeɪʃn̩]	Main stress. The mark denotes the stress of the following syllable.
[ ˌa ]		Weaker stress. The mark denotes the stress of the following syllable.
[ aː ]	English shh! [ʃː]	Long. Often used with English vowels or diphthongs: Mayo /ˈmeːoː/ for [ˈmeɪ̯ɜʊ̯], etc.
[ aˑ ]	RP caught [ˈkʰɔˑt]	Semi-long. (Although the vowel is different, this is also longer than cot [ˈkʰɒt].)
[ a̯ ]	English cow [kʰaʊ̯], koi [kʰɔɪ̯]	This vowel does not form a syllable of its own, but runs into the vowel next to it. (In English, the diacritic is generally left off: [kaʊ].)
[ ã ]	French vin blanc [vãblɑ̃] "white wine"	A nasal vowel, as with a Texas twang.
[ n̥ ]		Sounds like a loud whisper; [n̥] is like a whispered breath through the nose. [l̥] is found in Tibetan Lhasa.
[ n̩ ]	English button	A consonant without a vowel. (English [n̩] is often transcribed /ən/.)
[ d̪ ]	Spanish dos, French deux	The tongue touches the teeth more than it does in English.
[ kʰ ]	English come	Aspirated consonant, pronounced with a puff of air. Similarly [tʰ pʰ tsʰ tʃʰ tɕʰ].
[ k’ ]	Zulu ukuza "come"	Like a popped [k], pushed from the throat. Similarly [tʼ pʼ qʼ tʃʼ tsʼ tɬʼ].
[ á ]	Mandarin 妈妈 [mámā] "mother"	High tone (Pinyin: mā)	Careful! The Pinyin Romanization used for Mandarin has these same diacritics, but with different values. However, Thai Romanization uses them the way the IPA does.
[ ā ]	Mandarin 妈妈 [mámā] "mother"	Mid tone (Pinyin: ma).
[ à ]	Mandarin 马的 [màdɤ] "horse's"	Low tone (Pinyin: mǎ).
[ â ]	Mandarin 骂 [mâ] "scold"	Falling tone (Pinyin: mà).
[ ǎ ]	Mandarin 麻 [mǎ] "hemp"	Rising tone (Pinyin: má).
[ . ]	English courtship [ˈkɔrt.ʃɪp]	Syllable break. (this is often redundant and therefore left off)

Brackets

Two types of brackets are commonly used to enclose transcriptions in the IPA:

• /Slashes/ indicate those meaningful sounds that are distinguished as the basic sounds of a language by native speakers; these are called phonemes. Changing the symbols between slashes would either change the identity of the word or produce nonsense. For example, since there is no meaningful difference to a native speaker between the two sounds written with the letter el in the word lulls, they are considered the same phoneme and so, using slashes, they are given the same symbol in IPA: /ˈlʌlz/. Similarly, Spanish la bomba is transcribed phonemically with two instances of the same b sound, /laˈbomba/, despite the fact that they sound different to a speaker of English. Thus a reader who is not familiar with the language in question might not know how to interpret these transcriptions more narrowly.
• [Square brackets] indicate the narrower or more detailed phonetic qualities of a pronunciation, not taking into account the norms of the language to which it belongs; therefore, such transcriptions do not regard whether subtly different sounds in the pronunciation are actually noticeable or distinguishable to a native speaker of the language. Within square brackets is what a foreigner who does not know the structure of a language might hear as discrete units of sound. For instance, the English word lulls may be pronounced in a particular dialect more specifically as [ˈlɐɫz], with different letter el sounds at the beginning and end. This may be obvious to speakers of other languages that differentiate between the sounds [l] and [ɫ]. Likewise, Spanish la bomba (pronounced without a pause) has two different b-sounds to the ears of foreigners or linguists—[laˈβomba]—though a native Spanish speaker might not be able to hear it. Omitting or adding such detail does not make a difference to the identity of the word, but helps to give a more precise pronunciation.

A third kind of bracket is occasionally seen:

• Either //double slashes// or |pipes| (or occasionally other conventions) show that the enclosed sounds are theoretical constructs that are not actually heard. (This is part of morphophonology.) For instance, most phonologists argue that the -s at the ends of verbs, which surfaces as either /s/ in talks /tɔːks/ or as /z/ in lulls /lʌlz/, has a single underlying form. If they decide this form is an s, they would write it //s// (or |s|) to claim that phonemic /tɔːks/ and /lʌlz/ are essentially //tɔːks// and //lʌls// underneath. If they were to decide it was essentially the latter, //z//, they would transcribe these words //tɔːkz// and //lʌlz//.

Lastly,

• ⟨Angle brackets⟩ are used to set off orthography, as well as transliteration from non-Latin scripts. Thus ⟨lulls⟩, ⟨la bomba⟩, the letter ⟨a⟩. Angle brackets are not supported by all fonts, so a template {{angle bracket}} (shortcut {{angbr}}) is used to ensure maximal compatibility. (Comment there if you're having problems.)

Rendering issues

Voiced velar plosive

These two characters should look similar:

ɡ

If in the box to the left you see the symbol rather than a lower-case open-tail g, you may be experiencing a well-known bug in the font MS Reference Sans Serif; switching to another font may fix it.

On your current font: [ɡ],

and in several other fonts:

Affricates and double articulation

The tie bar is intended to cover both letters of an affricate or doubly articulated consonant. However, if your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better than the correct order (letter, tie bar, letter) due to a bug in that font:

ts͡, tʃ͡, tɕ͡, dz͡, dʒ͡, dʑ͡, tɬ͡, kp͡, ɡb͡, ŋm͡.

Here is how the proper configuration displays in your default IPA font:

t͡s, d͡z, t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, t͡ɕ, d͡ʑ, t͡ɬ, k͡p, ɡ͡b, ŋ͡m,

and in several other fonts: တမ်းပလိတ်:MFSample

Angle brackets

True angle brackets, ⟨ ⟩, are unsupported by several common fonts. Here is how they display in your default settings:

⟨...⟩ (unformatted)

⟨...⟩ (default IPA font)

⟨...⟩ (default Unicode font),

and in several specific fonts:

See also

• Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet
• IPA charts for diphthongs in various languages
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)#Entering IPA characters

External links

• IPA pronunciation chart
• IPA Charts – pronunciation charts with an interactive chart of all IPA symbols with their sounds (Flash)
• IPA Character Picker 7 - An easy-to-use web site for creating the complete set of IPA characters with any diacritic.