• As we have found out, English spelling does not have a clear relationship to the sound. • Rather than use the English alphabet to represent pronunciation, a better alternative is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
• We call the letters in the IPA symbols. • We write the symbols in / slant brackets / to show it is a pronunciation and not a spelling. • In the IPA one symbol = one sound. This makes it easier to understand. Notice how the English word gone has four letters, but in IPA it has three symbols /gɒn/, which shows there are three sounds.
Exercise 4: Match the English spelling to the IPA transcription. It’s easier than you think! If you don’t have paper to write down your answers, you can use the note tool
on the menu.
English Spelling 1) gone
2) fit 3) look 4) London 5) answer 6) brought Answers
It’s not essential for you to learn all the IPA symbols straight away. You can use them as a tool to find out the pronunciation of words. If you don’t know how a symbol should be pronounced, then the next two pages will help you. Now go to the next page to see all of the consonants in English with the IPA symbols.
IPA a) /brɔːt/ b) /lʊk/ c) /ɑːnsə/ d) /gɒn/ e) /fɪt/ f) /lʌndən/
