HowTo:Read the International Phonetic Alphabet

This is an actual guide. It's the longest thing you'll ever read, and probably will leave people even more confused than they were, however.

"It's easy. Just try squinting really hard at the letters, then reading it backwards." -Oscar Wilde on how to read the International Phonetic Alphabet

"IPA will make you an alcoholic. However, only the other IPA will truly ruin your life and career." -Average Joe on how to read the International Phonetic Alphabet

"That's a lot of ugly letters" -Captain Obvious on how to read the International Phonetic Alphabet

The infamous International Phonetic Alphabet, commonly found on Wikipedia pages, is a strange alphabet that seems to have been made solely to prevent the average fellow from finding out how a word is pronounced, although its creators insist otherwise. After all, the word arbitrary, for example, can easily be phonetically described as AR-bih-trehr-ree, which is both easier to understand and easier to type than /ˈɑːɹ̱ˠʷbɪṯ̩ʰɹ̱̥ʷɛɹ̱ʷi/. The International Phonetic Alphabet indeed shares an issue with the better-known IPA (India Pale Ale): only weird hipsters actually like it. But knowing the enemy's language is an important part of learning their plans and winning the war against them, so forward march, soldiers.

Squint real hard, and you'll probably understand at least a bit of it.

The easy part, according to Wikipedia

Wikipedia's table of the IPA contains the following massive pile of gobbledegook undecipherable to any layman. I mean, what does "retroflex" mean? Do you turn your whole head backwards when you say it? Do you look at old photos of buff guys flexing their muscles? Do you tap or flap your tongue to pronounce a "tap or flap"? Are "velar" sounds made by killing calves to make veal? Uhh... maybe. We'd rather not talk about that.

Place →	Labial					Coronal										Dorsal					Laryngeal
Manner ↓	Bi­labial		Labio­dental		Linguo­labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post­alveolar		Retro­flex		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal		Glottal
Nasal	m̥	m		ɱ		n̼			n̥	n			ɳ̊	ɳ	ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ	ɴ̥	ɴ
Plosive	p	b	p̪	b̪	t̼	d̼			t	d			ʈ	ɖ	c	ɟ	k	ɡ	q	ɢ	ʡ		ʔ
Sibilant fricative									s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ʂ	ʐ	ɕ	ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative	ɸ	β	f	v	θ̼	ð̼	θ	ð	θ̠	ð̠	ɹ̠̊˔	ɹ̠˔	ɻ̊˔	ɻ˔	ç	ʝ	x	ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	h	ɦ
Approximant				ʋ						ɹ				ɻ		j		ɰ						ʔ̞
Tap/flap		ⱱ̟		ⱱ		ɾ̼			ɾ̥	ɾ			ɽ̊	ɽ						ɢ̆		ʡ̆
Trill	ʙ̥	ʙ							r̥	r			ɽ̊r̥	ɽr					ʀ̥	ʀ	ʜ	ʢ
Lateral fricative									ɬ	ɮ			ꞎ	𝼅	𝼆	ʎ̝	𝼄	ʟ̝
Lateral approximant										l				ɭ		ʎ		ʟ		ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap									ɺ̥	ɺ			𝼈̥	𝼈		ʎ̆		ʟ̆

Oh, and we forgot the vowels, those aren't any better.

What even is this? What the heck is a ɤ? I have no idea, and even God probably has no idea, not that I've asked him about it.

The actual easy part

Obvious parts

Some letters make sounds you would expect them to make: b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, v, w, and z. You just... uhh... remember those letters are the ones that sound like they should. As you can see, the chart is full of weird alien sounds made using letters that never had any right to exist on this planet. Some are modified versions of other letters, like ʂ, ɬ and ħ, some are just small capital letters, like ʀ, ʜ and ʟ, some are stolen from the Greek alphabet, like β, θ and χ, and some were obviously made by drug addicts, like ʡ, ɰ and ɞ. Or maybe those were just compromises between a bunch of arguing old guys, who couldn't decide which letter to base something off of, so instead they all compromised and combine every letter of the alphabet into one, in various proportions.

A little less obvious parts

The "R" is rolled like in Spanish, Italian or Яцssiди. I could never pronounce this rolled r, so screw me and just about every other English speaker on the planet. If you can, you have every right to brag about it.

The weak, wimpy English ᴚ sound is wɹitten upside down, pɹesumably because tougheɹ, stɹongeɹ letteɹs knocked it oveɹ. Poor little wimp.

Ironically, the "y" sound is written as "j", the way they do it in Jermany. This inclusion may have helped the Blitzkrieg come dangerously close to taking over Europe.

The main vowels a, e, i, o, u sound like they do in Spanish or Italian, or about a kajillion other languages.

IPA transcriptions are written between two slashes, so that one can easily tell that something is an IPA transcription, as if we couldn't already tell from the ugly gibberish that is raping our eyes.

Other consonants in English

For those who want to continue being made fun of by foreigners for speaking only one language, the essential parts of the IPA should only contain the following letters:

ŋ makes the ng sound as in "Quit wasting your fucking time, you dingdong."

θ, a knockoff of a Greek letter, makes the "th" sound in "You thought you understood it all by now."

ð makes this "th" sound, not that one... wait... did you notice that? The difference is that this makes your throat vibrate, but the other one doesn't.

ʃ is literally just "sh", so shut up and get going, this alphabet will consume you if you stray any further.

tʃ, also written t̠ʃ, t͡ʃ, t͜ʃ, ʧ, and about a million other ways, makes the "ch" sound as in challah, champagne, chemist, yacht, that is, until it chickened out and abandoned those words entirely, choosing some new companions. It turns out that ch is composed of t and sh put together, hence the IPA spelling as such.

ʒ eez un sounde zat yeux overeuz tu maïque yeursêlf sôund Français, appéarînge een les wôrdes laïque garage, fromage, áz ouêlle âs en measure.

dʒ is just absolute junk. Judge the jiggles and jumps and jousts. A long time ago, dʒ set J's tiny shack in Connecticut on fire, then went to live under the burnt-to-the-ground remains. J then went to live with Y. It sometimes likes to surprise d when it's not looking closely, so that drive and drink are sometimes pronounced similarly to dʒ.

Did you get all that? Of course you didn't.

Vowels in English

Vowels among various standards differ in some fucked-up ways, this is the most important thing to remember in convincing people how bad the IPA is. Some of these are merely aesthetic choices, believe it or not. (Why didn't they just use a colon for the long vowels, instead of a skinny off-brand colon?)

Sensible People	'Murican English	Prissy English	'Strayan ɥsᴉlɓuƎ
a in nutsack	æ	a	æ
e in antidisestablishmentarianism	ɛ	e	e
o in women	ɪ	ɪ	i (feesh and cheeps)
a in father	ɑ	ɑː	aː
o in cock and ball torture	ɑ	ɒ	ɒ
a and o in cock and ball torture	ɒ, ɔ	ɔː	ɔː
o in love	ʌ	ɐ, ʌ	a
a in a, but not bouquet	ə	ə	ə
E in ERMAHGERD	ə, ɜː	ɜː	ɜː
ଟ in षݮଟᜪ᫸ꑕ	ὗ	ᒣ	ඞ
oo in roof	u, uː	ʉː, uː	ʉː
oo in roof	ʊ	ʊ	ʊ
u in perfume	ju, juː	jʉː	jʉː
ee in EEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!	i, iː	iː	iː
uet in bouquet	eɪ̯	ɛɪ̯	æɪ̯
oh in oh	oʊ̯	əʊ̯	əʉ̯
oi in oi oi oi	ɔɪ̯	ɔɪ̯	AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE
i in eye... wait	aɪ̯	aɪ̯	ɑɪ̯
ow in stubbing your toe	aʊ̯	aʊ̯	æo̯

In "r-less" dialects, merely drop the ɹ's, but not all of them... you know better than anyone on my side of the Atlantic. Or my side of the Pacific.

The shallow end of the (acid) pool

Even certain dialects of English contain the following sounds, but they are generally not transcribed because they don't want you to know... it's for your own sake... turn back from the /æsɪd puːl/... if you can already read that, it's too late...

ɾ is todally not a d. There are some languages that have this sound and make it sound like an R, hence its slight resemblance to the ledder.

ʔ, known as Captain Hook's hand to us and the glo'al stop to geeks, is a kind of pause, but not actually a pause somehow. Go figure! ʔ was invenʔed by some giggly Lonʔonəs wiʔ roʔen teeth afʔə they drank all of the T.

x, surprisingly, is not a "ks" sound, that is obviously written as ks. And it isn't "gz" either, or any other sounds that "x" makes. It's a raspy H sound made in the same part of your mouth as K. You may recognize it from "loch (lohhhhhh)".

ç is made by running an H and Y sound together, creating a weird mess of a sound halfway between the previous "x" and "sh". No, it doesn't make an S sound like in French, or even a "ch" sound like in Turkish. Say "human" quickly and you will no longer be legally considered human, thanks to this truly inhuman sound.

ʍ is a sound made by "wh" in several varieties of English. Even though it's slowly dying (press F, which it sounds like in some Scottish varieties, to pay respects), it is still not that difficult to find. If you've never heard "wh" be pronounced as "hw" or a voiceless "w" sound, you obviously haven't traveled around a whole lot, shame on you.

ɫ is just a version of L that has the slight trace of a "G" in it. It's still basically just L, though. Lick my baɫɫs, feel the difference on your tongue yourself, notice how in "balls", your tongue is touching the area farther back in your mouth?. Make sure to wash your mouth after misunderstanding the instructions.

ɘ is apparently how New Zealanders pronounce the "i" sound in "fish", making them almost sound like they are saying "fush".

Other Fairly Common Sounds Outside of English

ɣ, the sound of the weak Greek "g", was fittingly copied from Greek. Please stop stealing your letters, make your own, motherfuckers at the International Phonetic Association. The sound is similar to x (not ks) see above, but it makes your throat vibrate because it's having a real good time in there. It can also be pronounced by exhaling while pronouncing "g".

q does not make a "kw" sound, it makes a "k" sound, actually it doesn't make a "k" sound either, it makes a "k" sound, (You just said it didn't!) except the "k" sound is in the very back of your mouth, so it will make you choke. The sound was once rare, but the Gene Roddenberry popularized the sound due to its prominent appearance in Star Trek's Klingon.

χ is another Greek knockoff letter, and is another variation of x, except in the back of your mouth like q. It appears as a variant of the French "r" sound, and some dialects of Dutch use this sound for "g" for some reason. It will destroy your mouth if used excessively, to the χreat hindrance of Belgium and the southern Netherlands. I will say however, that saying /q͡χ/ repeatedly (the curve above the two shows that the sounds should be pronounced essentially as a single unit) is a great way to clear your throat, giving this ugly sound a use.

ʁ is the infamous French "r" sound, being a version of ɣ pronounced in the back of your throat. To avoid accidentally pronouncing it and destroying my throat, I will hastily depart.

ɲ is well known as the ñ sound from Spanish, or the gn sound from French and Italian. No, that's not a "ny", yeah, I was shocked too. It is more of an n pronounced by trying to say "y", whoops I mean /j/, well, uhh... the Y sound.

ɬ is a weird sound found in weird languages spoken by weird people like Welsh, Icelandic and Navajo. Position your tongue like you're about to say "l", then try to say "sh", and you have a weird sound incomprehensible to the sensible man's ear, thus it is misheard as kl, tl, sl, shl, l, hl, sh, thl, fl, among others. If you can distinguish it from all of those, you are officially insane.

ʎ might as well just be a "y" sound, but someone flipped it over at some time apparently, giving it a slight trace of an L. You know what, screw it, say it like Y, nobody will notice, or will they?

ħ is a god-awful "h" sound from Arabic, pronounced in the FRONT of your THROAT, but still not in your mouth. The sound has been responsible for countless chokings from foreigners attempting to pronounce it, and thus should be avoided. Don't learn Arabic, you'll regret it.

y (not j, which is not dʒ) is a vowel on the International Phonetic Alphabet, kind of an "ee" sound (/i/) with lips rounded as in "oo". The result is mimicry of the cat below's expression. You can do this with sounds ɪ, e, ɛ, æ ɘ and ɜ respectively to produce the sounds ʏ, ø, œ, ɶ, ɵ, and ɞ which are similar in their nature. In Finnish, the word for "night" is "yö, pronounced /yø/, and foreigners get sick from even trying to pronounce this word.

Attempts to pronounce y, ʏ, ø, œ and ɶ generally end up like this.

ɤ and ɯ can be made by "unrounding" your lips from /o/ and /u/.

The funky terms

Oh boy, time to explain the Wikipedia geekspeak. Now you can memorize and pronounce all the sounds on the chart, then infiltrate the enemy. All these names are long and similar sounding, but hey, it isn't our fault.

Horizontal index (columns)

Bilabial: Sounds like p, b and m in which you stick your lips together, now don't kiss me, unless you want people to think you're gay.

Labiodental: Sounds like f and v where your teeth touch your lips a little. Apparently a struggle for cavemen.

Linguolabial: Stick your tongue between your lips like you're blowing a raspberry (ʙ̺). So apparently whoever invented the IPA wanted to be made fun of like that.

Dental: Say those d's, t's and n's with your tongue up to your teeth like "th". Now you're sounding like a Spaniard!

Alveolar: Just regular d's, t's and n's, how boring.

Postalveolar: Further back than d's, t's and n's, in the position of "sh".

Retroflex: See ɻ, highlighted in red above.

Palatal: Weird, soft, slushy sounds, like /j, ʎ, ç and ɲ,/ and made with your tongue in the same position as any of those.

Velar: Touch your molars to the sides of the back of your tongue, as in k or g.

Uvular: Similar to Velar, but in the back of your mouth, making nearby vowels all sound like "ah" and "aw" if you're not careful. q, χ and ʁ are examples.

Pharyngeal/epiglottal: Unpronounceable front-of-your-throat sounds. Just fake cough, and you're probably fine. Wikipedia couldn't explain it better anyway.

Glottal/glo'al: Made in the very back of your throat, barely even makes any noise like h and ʔ.

Voiced consonants are technically distinguished the horizontal part of the rows, so the right half of each box has a voiced consonant (one that makes your throat vibrate) and a voiceless consonant (one that doesn't, not jazzy enough to make it dance.)

Vertical index (rows)

Nasals are sounds made through your nose, so if you get congested or plug your nose, you end up mispronouncing them often... m and n are examples, say the others in the manner of M or N.

Plosives are sounds like p, b, t, k, d and g, where you stick your tongue, lips, or uhhh.. something on a surface then lift your tongue or lips. You know how to do it...

Fricatives are sounds like f, th, s, sh, z, v, or h made by sticking your tongue or lips on a surface and then exhaling.

Sibilant means that a sound makes a weird hiss in the background, as do s, z, and sh (ʃ). It mostly just means "s-like sounds," but you have to think of fancy words for everything.

Non-sibilant should not even have to be explained.

Approximants are like fricatives, but your tongue, lips, or uhhh.. something are barely even touching the surface.

Taps and flaps are like plosives, but weaker and snappier. I mean, I can't even tell the difference.

Trills are something that only people who can roll their r's can explain well, just know that the other horrible sounds operate on the same prrrrrrinciples.

Lateral sounds are pronounced kind of like L, with only the sides of your tongue touching the roof of your mouth. L itself is the mother of all laterals, and the prime example, even its namesake due to the word "lateral" containing two of it.

With that shitty information, now try pronouncing this chart again, if you fail to do so you are still with us and not entirely insane.

Place →	Labial					Coronal										Dorsal					Laryngeal
Manner ↓	Bi­labial		Labio­dental		Linguo­labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post­alveolar		Retro­flex		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal		Glottal
Nasal	m̥	m		ɱ		n̼			n̥	n			ɳ̊	ɳ	ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ	ɴ̥	ɴ
Plosive	p	b	p̪	b̪	t̼	d̼			t	d			ʈ	ɖ	c	ɟ	k	ɡ	q	ɢ	ʡ		ʔ
Sibilant fricative									s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ʂ	ʐ	ɕ	ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative	ɸ	β	f	v	θ̼	ð̼	θ	ð	θ̠	ð̠	ɹ̠̊˔	ɹ̠˔	ɻ̊˔	ɻ˔	ç	ʝ	x	ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	h	ɦ
Approximant				ʋ						ɹ				ɻ		j		ɰ						ʔ̞
Tap/flap		ⱱ̟		ⱱ		ɾ̼			ɾ̥	ɾ			ɽ̊	ɽ						ɢ̆		ʡ̆
Trill	ʙ̥	ʙ							r̥	r			ɽ̊r̥	ɽr					ʀ̥	ʀ	ʜ	ʢ
Lateral fricative									ɬ	ɮ			ꞎ	𝼅	𝼆	ʎ̝	𝼄	ʟ̝
Lateral approximant										l				ɭ		ʎ		ʟ		ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap									ɺ̥	ɺ			𝼈̥	𝼈		ʎ̆		ʟ̆

Did you fail? Great, you're still a living, functioning member of society. If your throat is too tangled to speak now, that's even better. But wait... there's more!

Diacritics (if you're not exhausted already!)

A symbol like an apostrophe but not somehow is used to mark syllable stress. I couldn't even find it, so I'd just use "'" (oh crap, there is an apostrophe between those quotation marks, but now it looks like five apostrophes. I have failed truly.)

ʰ is used to show a puff of air- a trace of an H- when saying a consonant. You already probably do it when you say p, t or k, so the important thing is to learn how to NOT do it.

The curved line below ɪ̯ and ʊ̯ shows that the vowel bleeds into the surrounding vowels... get the vowel some bandages.

The curved line ABOVE t͡ʃ and other sounds makes the two basically pronounced as one sound.... BASICALLY... I give up.

ã, ẽ, õ - vowels with a squiggle above them, are sort of said through your nose... à la français.

Small letters, like ʷ,ʲ,ˠ,ˤ, leave their own traces on a letter... best explanation I have.

And... uhhh.... that's about it. Now enter Wikipedia, mess with the IPA, infiltrate the enemy, learn their plans, and declare war. The IPA will now be destroyed once and for all!