Go to Vowel Chart Further Information on Dictionaries and Symbols Alternative symbols:
Sometimes (and confusingly) different dictionaries choose different symbols from the IPA to represent English sounds. My worksheets all use the symbols used in the Oxford English Dictionary. Here is a quick reference guide if you are looking at different dictionaries:
Symbol used on this worksheet Alternative symbols /ԑ/ like in DRESS /a/ like in TRAP /əː/ like in NURSE
/e/
/æ/ /ɜː/
Symbol used on this worksheet Alternative symbols /ɑː/ like in START /ʌɪ/ like in PRICE /ԑː/ like in SQUARE
/aː/ /aɪ/
/eə/, /ԑə/
You can switch the symbols using the vowel chart in this course (or on my website) by selecting the dictionary you use. On my website, the Vowel Chart and Consonant Chart have FAQs underneath which contain lots of information.
A great dictionary is Longman’s Pronunciation Dictionary (by John Wells). This comes with software that you can install on a computer (not a Mac) and listen to the pronunciations. It lists lots of alternative pronunciations and often shows which one is most popular. Search YouTube videos for words on this website: youglish.com. This allows you to hear contemporary pronunciations by native speakers.
forvo.com is a website where native speakers record words. This is a good resource to find pronunciations of words you wouldn’t find in a dictionary (names, places, etc.) This site howjsay.com also gives you pronunciations of words usually not found in the dictionary, but it doesn’t work on iPad/iPhone.
You can copy and paste text into these websites to hear them being read out loud: naturalreaders.com (you can also change the speed) and ivona.com. You can type IPA symbols on this website ipa.typeit.org
