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International Phonetic Alphabet

Every sound,
one symbol each.

The IPA gives each distinct speech sound its own symbol, so a linguist can write down a word in any language and another can say it back. Choose a symbol to hear the sound it stands for.

Each recording is the sound on its own, at its cardinal value. Running speech bends it: English voiceless plosives usually pick up a puff of aspiration, for instance, which the plain symbols here don't carry.

Pick a symbol to hear it.

Vowels

Positioned by tongue height and how far forward the tongue sits. Where two symbols share a spot, the one on the right is rounded.

FrontCentralBack

Pulmonic consonants

Made on an outward breath. Columns run from the lips to the glottis; in each column the left symbol is voiceless and the right one voiced.

Non-pulmonic consonants

Powered by something other than the lungs — a click of the tongue, a pull of the larynx, a squeeze of trapped air.

Other symbols

Sounds made in two places at once, plus a few that don't fit the main grid.

Affricates

A plosive released into a fricative, written as two symbols joined by a tie bar.