How to read IPA pronunciation symbols
A practical key to every symbol used on this site, with example words. Updated 2026-11-08.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) gives every speech sound its own symbol. English spelling is famously unreliable — though, through, tough and cough share four letters and no vowel sound — so dictionaries use IPA to show what a word actually sounds like. You don't need to learn the whole alphabet: English uses about 44 sounds, and most of the consonant symbols are ordinary letters with their usual values.
Slashes, stress and length
- / … / — slashes mark a transcription of the sounds a speaker means to say. On this site restaurant is /ˈɹɛstɹɑːnt/ in American English.
- ˈ (a raised tick) marks primary stress and sits at the start of the stressed syllable: /kəmˈpjuːtɚ/ is com-PU-ter.
- ˌ (a lowered tick) marks secondary stress, a weaker beat: /pɹəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃən/ — the main beat is on -a-, a lighter one on -nun-.
- ː (a colon-like mark) means the vowel is long: /iː/ in see versus /ɪ/ in sit.
Consonants that need explaining
Most consonants — p, b, t, d, k, f, v, s, z, h, m, n, l, w — mean exactly what you expect. These are the ones that don't:
| Symbol | Sound | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| ɡ | hard g, always | go, bag — never the g of gem |
| j | the y sound | yes /jɛs/ — not the English letter j |
| dʒ | the j sound | judge /dʒʌdʒ/, gem |
| tʃ | ch | chair, nature |
| ʃ | sh | she, nation |
| ʒ | the s in vision | measure, beige |
| θ | voiceless th | thin, bath |
| ð | voiced th | this, mother |
| ŋ | ng (one sound) | sing /sɪŋ/ — no separate g at the end |
| ɹ | English r | red — many dictionaries simply write r |
Vowels: where English gets tricky
English has far more vowel sounds than the five vowel letters, so this is where IPA earns its keep.
| Symbol | Like the vowel in | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ɪ | sit | short; also the first vowel of beautiful /ˈbjuːtɪfəl/ |
| iː | see | long |
| i | happy | the light “ee” at the end of words |
| ɛ | bed | often written e in British dictionaries |
| æ | cat | |
| ʌ | cup | |
| ə | the a in about | the schwa — the most common vowel in English |
| ɚ | US butter | an r-coloured schwa (American only) |
| ɜː | bird | US often writes ɝ |
| ɑː / ɑ | father | |
| ɒ | UK hot | British only; Americans use ɑ |
| ɔː | law | |
| ʊ | book | |
| uː | food | |
| eɪ | day | diphthong (two vowels in one glide) |
| aɪ | my | |
| ɔɪ | boy | |
| aʊ | now | |
| oʊ / əʊ | go | oʊ in American, əʊ in British transcription |
| ɪə, eə, ʊə | UK near, square, tour | British “centring” diphthongs; Americans say ɪɹ, ɛɹ, ʊɹ |
The schwa deserves its own section
If you learn one symbol, learn ə. Almost every unstressed vowel in English collapses into this short, relaxed “uh”, whatever letter spells it: the a in about, the e in taken, the o in lemon, the u in support. Learners who pronounce every vowel at full strength sound careful but foreign; letting unstressed syllables shrink to ə is one of the fastest ways to sound natural.
Reading a transcription, step by step
Take comfortable, transcribed on its word page as /ˈkʌmftəbəl/:
- Find the stress mark: it's at the start, so the first syllable is loud — KUMF.
- Read the symbols left to right: k-ʌ-m-f — “kumf”. Note that the spelled -or- has collapsed to a schwa (American speakers often colour it with an R, ɚ), and there are only three spoken syllables, not four.
- Unstressed syllables are short: -tə-bəl — “tuh-buhl”.
Every word page on this site also gives a respelling for exactly this reason — comfortable becomes KUHMF-tuh-buhl — but the IPA is the precise version.
Why two dictionaries can disagree
Different publishers use slightly different conventions for the same sounds: British dictionaries often write /e/ for the vowel of bed, American ones /ɛ/; some write /r/ instead of /ɹ/; some American dictionaries use their own non-IPA systems altogether. These are choices of notation, not disagreements about how the word sounds. On this site we follow the common learner's-dictionary conventions and show American and British transcriptions separately.