speech sounds in english with examples

The 44 Sounds in the English Language

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When supporting children in learning the sounds of the English language, remember to choose words that demonstrate all 44 word-sounds or phonemes . English contains 19 vowel sounds —5 short vowels, 6 long vowels, 3 diphthongs, 2 'oo' sounds, and 3 r-controlled vowel sounds—and 25 consonant sounds.

The following lists provide sample words to use when teaching the sounds of the English language. You may choose to find more words to fill out word families or align with sight vocabulary lists such as a Dolch Word List . Your learners will benefit most from terms that are familiar to them or make sense in their life.

The 5 Short Vowel Sounds

The five short vowel sounds in English are a, e, i, o, and u.

• short a: and, as, and after
• short e: pen, hen, and lend
• short i: it and in
• short o: top and hop
• short u: under and cup

Remember that these sounds are not necessarily indicative of spelling. Note that the above words all contain the vowel whose sound they make but this is not always the case. A word might sound as if it contains a certain vowel that is not there. Examples of words whose short vowel sounds do not correspond with their spelling are b u sy and d o es.

The 6 Long Vowel Sounds

The six long vowel sounds in English are a, e, i, o, u, and oo .

• long a: make and take
• long e: beet and feet
• long i: tie and lie
• long o: coat and toe
• long u (pronounced "yoo"): music and cute
• long oo: goo and droop

Examples of words whose long vowel sounds do not correspond with their spelling are th e y, tr y, fr u it, and f e w .

The R-Controlled Vowel Sounds

An r-controlled vowel is a vowel whose sound is influenced by the r that comes before it. The three r-controlled vowel sounds are ar, er, and or.

• ar: bark and dark
• er: her, bird, and fur
• or: fork, pork, and stork

It is important that students pay close attention to the er sound in words because it can be created by an r-controlled e , i, or u . These vowels are all transformed into the same sound when an r is attached to the end of them. More examples of this include bett er , f ir st, and t ur n .

The 18 Consonant Sounds

The letters c, q , and x are not denoted by unique phonemes because they are found in other sounds. The c sound is covered by k sounds in words like c rust, c runch, and c reate and by s sounds in words like c ereal, c ity, and c ent (the c is found in the spelling of these words only but does not have its own phoneme). The q sound is found in kw words like bac kw ard and Kw anza. The x sound is found in ks words like kic ks .

• b: bed and bad
• k: cat and kick
• d: dog and dip
• f: fat and fig
• g: got and girl
• h: has and him
• j: job and joke
• l: lid and love
• m: mop and math
• n: not and nice
• p: pan and play
• r: ran and rake
• s: sit and smile
• t: to and take
• v: van and vine
• w: water and went
• y: yellow and yawn
• z: zipper and zap

Blends are formed when two or three letters combine to create a distinct consonant-sound, often at the beginning of a word. In a blend, the sounds from each original letter are still heard, they are just blended quickly and smoothly together. The following are common examples of blends.

• bl: blue and blow
• cl: clap and close
• fl: fly and flip
• gl: glue and glove
• pl: play and please
• br: brown and break
• cr: cry and crust
• dr: dry and drag
• fr: fry and freeze
• gr: great and ground
• pr: prize and prank
• tr: tree and try
• sk: skate and sky
• sl: slip and slap
• sp: spot and speed
• st: street and stop
• sw: sweet and sweater
• spr: spray and spring
• str: stripe and strap

The 7 Digraph Sounds

A digraph is formed when two consonants come together to create an entirely new sound that is distinctly different from the sounds of the letters independently. These can be found anywhere in a word but most often the beginning or end. Some examples of common digraphs are listed below.

• ch: chin and ouch
• sh: ship and push

Point out to your students that there are two sounds that th can make and be sure to provide plenty of examples.

Diphthongs and Other Special Sounds

A diphthong is essentially a digraph with vowels—it is formed when two vowels come together to create a new sound in a single syllable as the sound of the first vowel glides into the second. These are usually found in the middle of a word. See the list below for examples.

• oi: oil and toy
• ow: owl and ouch

Other special sounds include:

• short oo : took and pull
• aw: raw and haul
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• Basic Grammar: What Is a Diphthong?
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101 Guide on English Phonemes: The 44 Phonemes with Examples + ALL Possible Spellings + Correct Pronunciation!!

• Post author By Laura
• Post date May 25, 2022
• No Comments on 101 Guide on English Phonemes: The 44 Phonemes with Examples + ALL Possible Spellings + Correct Pronunciation!!

In today’s article we are going to go through the 44 English phonemes. But, let’s clarify some KEY concepts before getting started.

Table of Contents

What are Phonemes? How are they different from graphemes?

Phonemes are the smallest units of sounds that we can find in a language . For instance: /m/ /a/ /t/ are the 3 phonemes we can find in the word ‘mat.’

I will also give you examples of words containing all the different spelling options there are for each of these phonemes.

The spelling options are called graphemes . In other words, graphemes are the written representation of these phonemes.

So, what we are really going to do today is to going through the English phonemes – graphemes correspondences.

Why is it important to know the 44 English Phonemes?

Use this article (and supporting video – below) as your reference because only by knowing all of this yourself, you will be able to confidently teach and support your children or students to read.

However, do not try to introduce all of these sounds and the different spelling variations at the same time to your students. That can be really overwhelming!

If you are learning English a second language, this guide will help you identify the different sounds that hide behind letters. That training will  be extremely beneficial for your understanding of English and for your pronunciation!

For a FREE chart of the 44 English sounds in pdf format, click here!

Consonant sounds

Consonant sounds (digraphs), short vowels, long vowels, r-controlled vowels, the schwa sound, free phonemes chart   , key concepts to remember phoneme.

A phoneme is a speech sound . It’s the smallest unit of sound. When combined with other individual sounds in specific order strings, distinguishes one word from another.

Sounds can’t be written. So, the solution that we came up with is using letters to represent these sounds.

A grapheme is the written representation of one sound .

Sometimes a grapheme can be one letter (for instance, the letter ‘b’ represents the /b/ sound in the word ‘bus’) , or a group of letters (for instance, the letters ‘ck’ represent the /k/ sound in kick or lock ).

44 Phonemes

It is generally agreed that there are around 44 sounds in English .

The final number may depend on the accent or articulation.

The 44 English phonemes are represented by the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet individually and in combination .

Phonics Instruction

Phonics instruction involves teaching the relationship between letters and sounds.

As you can see, there are many spelling alternatives that can be used to represent the 44 English phonemes.

That is why it is so important to follow a systematic approach to teaching reading , that takes into account the complexities of the English language, and introduces concepts gradually.

Consonant Sounds and Vowel Sounds

The 44 English sounds can be divided into two major categories – consonants and vowels.

A consonant sound is one in which the air flow is cut off, either partially or completely, when the sound is produced.

On the other hand, a vowel sound is one in which the air flow is unobstructed when the sound is made.

Hey there! I’m Laura – an author, YouTuber, blogger, and the creator of the “Learning Reading Hub” platform. I created this space to dive into the world of reading instruction and to shout from the rooftops about how vital it is to use the right methods for teaching reading. I’ve got a TEYL certification (Teaching English to Young Learners), plus a Journalism degree from the University of Navarra in Spain, along with a Master’s Degree in Communication.

I’ve always loved digging into research, jotting down my thoughts, connecting with people, and sharing what makes me tick. With a background in marketing, digital projects, and the education scene (especially language learning), I’m all about wearing different hats.

When my first kid needed to learn how to read, it opened my eyes to the challenges and complexities involved. This journey took me through a rollercoaster of self-teaching, eye-opening discoveries, and yeah, some letdowns too. There’s so much conflicting info out there, along with methods that just don’t cut it. And let’s face it, these issues are way too common.

Now, I’m all about channeling that passion (without sounding like a know-it-all!) and sharing my journey. My mission? Making it easier for those who are on the same path I once was.

My heart’s with my family and the amazing Learning Reading Hub project. I live with my husband and two little ones, raising them in a bi-lingual environment (English and Spanish).

Related Posts:

• The Surprising Benefits of Subtitle Use for Literacy…
• What is the best phonics curriculum? Discover the TOP 7…
• What is Phonemic Awareness? Why is It SO Important?
• How to teach my child to read (FROM SCRATCH)? The ULTIMATE…
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Interactive Phonemic Chart

Listen to the sounds of english.

Please wait a few seconds while the chart loads...

The symbols on this clickable chart represent the 44 sounds used in British English speech (Received Pronunciation). Click on each symbol or sample word to hear. ( See also: Printable Phonemic Chart )

Monophthong vowels are arranged by mouth shape:

• left > right, lips wide > lips round
• top > bottom, jaw closed > jaw open

The first two rows of consonants are paired:

• above, voiceless
• below, voiced

This version of the phonemic chart is based on the familiar Adrian Underhill layout.

Further Reference

• Adrian Underhill UK Chart and US Chart
• Printable Phonemic Chart
• Phonemic Chart Keyboard

Useful Videos

• The Phonemic Chart Explained - YouTube
• What is the phonemic chart? - YouTube
• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) - YouTube

SpeakUp resources

44 phonemes in english and other sound blends.

• By Jake Pool

Regardless of your native language, to learn another language, you must be able to piece together the sounds that make up words. 

In English, there are 44 phonemes, or word sounds that make up the language. They’re divided into 19 consonants, 7 digraphs, 5 ‘r-controlled’ sounds, 5 long vowels, 5 short vowels, 2 ‘oo’ sounds, 2 diphthongs.

This guide will help you learn and understand those 44 sounds along with some other blended and special sounds used in English. If you’re ever unsure of how to pronounce phonemes in English, you can refer back to this guide and piece together any word or phrase confidently.

19 Consonant Phonemes

In this list, notice that the consonants x, q, and c do not have unique phonemes. This is because these letters are made by other sounds:

• C-sounds that make a /k/ in crop, crack, creep and 
• C-sounds that make an /s/ in central, cent, and cite.
• Q-sounds are also in words that contain the letters ‘kw’ as in walkway, parkway, and awkward.
• X-sounds are also in words with ‘cks’ as in backstop, rocks, and necks

/b/ – beg and bag

/d/ – doe and deal

/f/ – fall and fit

/g/ – goal and gill

/h/ – has and him

/j/ – job and jolt

/k/ – cap and kite

/l/ – lip and load

/m/ – map and moth

/n/ – net and nip

/p/ – pin and plot

/r/ – run and rope

/s/ – sat and small

/t/ – toe and tale

/v/ – vin and volt

/w/ – wait and wind

/y/ – yam and yet

/z/ – zip and zoo

7 Digraph Phonemes

Digraphs form when two consonants work together to create a completely different sound. The two consonants have different sounds on their own and are most often—but not always—seen at the start or end of a word.

/ch/ – watch and chime

/sh/ – shift and short

/ng/ – ring and sting

/th/ (voiced) – weather and thin

/th/ (unvoiced) – thing and thunder

/zh/ – genre and division

/wh/ (with breath) – what

5 R-Controlled, or Influenced, Phonemes

These phonemes are controlled or influenced by the letter r . 

/a(r)/ – car and far

/ā(r)/ – fair and chair

/i(r)/ – here and steer

/o(r)/ – core and door

/u(r)/ – fern and burn

5 Long Vowel Phonemes

/ā/ – day and eight

/ē/ – beet and sleep

/ī/ –  pie and sky

/ō/ – boat and row

/ū/ – hue and chew

5 Short Vowel Phonemes

/a/ –  bat and laugh

/e/ – medical and bread

/i/ – sit and lip

/o/ – hot and orange

/u/ – shut and cut

2 ‘oo’ vowel Phonemes

/oo/ – took and could

/ōō/ – moon and 

If you’re having trouble with ‘oo’ and other vowel sounds , we’ve got you covered!

2 Diphthongs

A diphthong is two vowels that work together to form another sound.

/ow/ – mouse and cow

/oy/ – coin and toy

Sound Blends

This list is a group of common sounds you’ll hear in English. They’re a group of consonant blends that create distinct sounds, and you’ll often see them at the beginning of a word. Most of the sounds are a blend of the consonant sounds described above, but when they work together, their sound is quick and smooth.

bl – blot and blunder

cl – clot and clam

fl – flow and flop

gl – glow and glamor

pl – plot and play

br – brat and broke

cr – cream and crop

dr – drop and drove

fr – frail and frozen

gr – grand and grow

pr – pronoun and prime

tr – trash and trust

sk – skip and sky

sl – slot and slow

sp – sponge and spell

st – still and stand

sw –  swat and sway

spr – spruce and spring

str – strip and stretch

Knowing the 44 English phonemes will help you pronounce words correctly and be understood by speakers around the world. But correct pronunciation won’t happen overnight or even by just memorizing the text and audio from this list. You’ll need practice!

Why not practice in an encouraging live environment like SpeakUp by Magoosh ? With SpeakUp, you can master the 44 English phonemes and learn other idioms, phrases, and vocabulary. Plus, you get feedback from native English speakers who can work with you to master your pronunciation.

Free practice (Facebook group)

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The 44 Phonemes in English

Despite there being just 26 letters in the English language there are approximately 44 unique sounds, also known as  phonemes . The 44 sounds help distinguish one word or meaning from another. Various letters and letter combinations known as graphemes are used to represent the sounds. 

The 44 English sounds fall into two categories: consonants and vowels. Below is a list of the 44 phonemes along with their International Phonetic Alphabet symbols and some examples of their use. Note that there is no such thing as a definitive list of phonemes because of accents, dialects and the evolution of language itself. Therefore you may discover lists with more or less than these 44 sounds.    

What is the International Phonetic Alphabet?

How can you pronounce a word you've never read? It can be a bit tricky. How about a word in a foreign language? Now that must be impossible! Or is it? Imagine a set of symbols that could tell you how to pronounce any word in any language on the planet? Well that is exactly what the International Phonetic Alphabet is. Currently, the IPA consists of 107 sound symbols, 52 diacritics (accents) and 4 prosodic marks (intonations) encompassing virtually every phoneme used in every language on the earth.  So for any written word, you can identify the associated phoneme symbols, and with a bit of practice, pronounce the word! Congratulations, you can speak Greek now!  The IPA was created by the International Phonetic Association . Founded in 1886 in Paris, their original mission was to help school children pronounce words in foreign languages and to aid in the teaching of reading. Today their mission is to promote the scientific study of phonetics.

Teaching phonemic awareness

Knowing that phonemic awareness is a critical skill and being able to effectively teach it are two different things.  The book  50 Reading Strategies for K-8 Learners ( Sage Publications ) s uggests 5 guidelines for phonemic awareness instruction: 

• Analysis of phonemic awareness assessment data should drive instruction, as only a small percentage of students need explicit instruction (Ehri & Roberts, 2006).
• Phonemic awareness instruction should be a positive, enriching experience that allows students to engage in language play (Yopp, 1992).
• Effective phonemic awareness instruction provides for individual differences in abilities and uses leveled scaffolding to facilitate growth (McGee & Ukrainetz, 2009).
• Developmentally appropriate phonemic awareness instruction uses chants, poetry, songs, and rhymes to engage students’ curiosity about language and to develop metalinguistic awareness (Yopp & Yopp, 2000).
• Effective phonemic awareness instruction explicitly labels sounds and demonstrates the process of blending-segmenting of sounds (Ehri et al., 2001).

Begin with assessment and then use playful, individualized, multisensory instruction

Consistent with all the researched advice on teaching phonemic awareness above, educational therapist and author  Dr. Erica Warren , believes that the key to successfully teaching the 44 phonemes in English is assessment, followed by individualized, multi-sensory instruction. She has developed a helpful assessment tool and a number of fun, effective instruction/remediation tools for helping young readers master the essential sounds of the English language. And she created a custom bundle of tools just for Reading Well parents and professional visitors  at a special discounted price. The bundle includes an easy to administer assessment tool and over 50 fun, multisensory games and activities which children love. We suggest you check it out.  

Final sounds on the 44 phonemes in English

The difficulty people with dyslexia have in distinguishing phonemes is most clearly revealed in their poor spelling. While any phoneme can be a challenge, some are more problematic than others. The vowels and digraphs generally present more difficulty than the consonants, although any sound can present difficulty depending on the particular word and phrase in which it resides.   

Good luck and good reading!

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The Mimic Method

Speak a Foreign Language Like a Native

Place of Articulation

The diagram below gives a view of the human mouth with arrows pointing to the places of articulation used in English.

In other words, these are the places where the constrictions and obstructions of air occur.

On this page, I will do the following for you:

• Explain each of these place of articulation in detail.
• List the English consonant sounds that occur at each place of articulation.
• Provide audio examples for you to hear and contextualize these sounds.

As you follow along, be sure to say the sounds and example English words out loud so that you can feel the places of articulation in your own mouth. 

Bilabial consonants occur when you block/constrict airflow out of the mouth by bringing your lips together.

English contains the following three bilabial consonants:

• /p/ as in “ p urse” and “ra p “
• /b/ as in “ b ack” and “ca b “
• /m/ as in “ m ad” and “cla m “

Labio-Dental

Labio-dental consonants occur when you block/constrict airflow by curling your lower lip back and raising it to touch your upper row of teeth.

English contains the following two labio-dental sounds:

• /f/ as in “ f ro” and “cal f “
• /v/ as in “ v ine” and “ha v e”

Dental consonants occur when you block/constrict airflow by placing your slimy tongue against your upper teeth. 

• /θ/ as is “ th ick” and “ba th “
• /ð/ as in “ th e” and “ra th er”

The alveolar ridge is where your teeth meet your gums. 

You create Alveolar consonants when you raise your tongue to the alveolar ridge to block or constrict airflow. 

The English alveolar consonants are as follows:

• /n/ as in “ n o” and “ma n “
• /t/ as in “ t ab” and “ra t “
• /d/ as in “ d ip” and “ba d “
• /s/ as in “ s uit” and “bu s “
• /z/ as in “ z it” and “ja zz “
• /l/ as in “ l uck” and “fu ll y”

Post-Alveolar

When you retract your tongue back just a bit from the alveolar ridge, the sounds change enough to be recognized as distinct consonants.  

So post-alveolar consonants are those that occur when the tongue blocks or constricts airflow at the point just beyond the alveolar ridge. 

The post-alveolar english consonants are as follows: 

• /ʃ/ as in “ sh ot” or “bra sh ”  
• /ʒ/ as in “vi s ion” or “mea s ure”
• /tʃ/ as in “ ch ick” or “ma tch ”  
• /dʒ/ as in “ j am” or “ba dge “

The roof of your mouth is the  hard palate . You may know it as “the place that burns like hell when I eat pizza that is too hot.”  

You create Palatal consonants when you raise the tongue to this point and constrict airflow.  

English has only one palatal consonant: 

• /j/ as in “ y es” and “ba y ou”

Behind your hard palate you have the  velum  or  soft palate. Unlike the bony hard palate in front of it, the this consists of soft, mucousy tissue.  

You make Velar Consonants when you raise the back of your tongue to the velum to block or restrict airflow.

English has the following velar consonants:

• /ŋ/ as in “goi n g” and “u n cle” (note that the ‘n sound’ in these words is NOT made at the alveolar ridge, which is why it is distinct from /n/).
• /k/ as in “ k ite” and “ba ck “
• /g/ as in “ g ood” and “bu g “
• /w/ as in “ w et” and “ho w ard”

The glottis is actually two vocal folds (i.e. vocal cords). It acts as a sort of bottle cap to your windpipe.

Inhale and then hold your breath for a few seconds while keeping your mouth open. What you are actually doing to keep the air from expelling out of your lungs by closing your glottis.  

Glottal consonants aren’t actually consonants; they just play consonant roles in the language. In English, the following things happen at the glottis:

• /h/ as in “ h i” and “Ba h amas.” Say these words and notice how you’re not actually constricting or blocking airflow for this /h/ sound. You’re just exhaling a little bit harder than you would for a normal vowel sound in transition  to the following vowel sound.
• /?/ – This is actually the culprit behind many of the “silent syllables” we discussed in the first lesson. For example, in the phrase “wha(t) time is it?” the /t/ in “what” is dropped and the vowel sound before it is closed at the glottis.

It takes a bit of time to develop a physical awareness of your speech organ. There are two reasons for this:

• You can’t see your speech organ
• You’ve been using the muscles of your speech organ every day of your life since your first breath. 

Remember that whether you see it or not, the muscles of the speech organ can be controlled.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re incapable of a human speech sound. It’s just a question of knowing and practicing.

Come back to this page as often as you need to review this information. 

Here’s the full chart again for your viewing pleasure:

Before we move on I want to make a few important points:

• I do NOT list all the possible places of articulation for human speech. These are just the ones for General American English.
• I do NOT list all the possible consonant sounds. These are also just for General American English.

To recap, the place of articulation is not the only feature that determines the sound of a consonant. There is also manner of articulation and phonation .

On the next page we will review these same English consonant sounds from their  Manner of Articulation. 

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3 Chapter 3: Phonetics (The Sounds of Speech)

Learning outcomes.

After studying this chapter, you should be able to discuss:

• the three aspects of speech that make up phonetics
• the International Phonetic Alphabet
• the theories of speech perception

Introduction

Think about how you might describe the pronunciation of the English word cat (cat pictured below). If you had to tell someone what’s the first sound of the word, what would you tell them?

Read this poem out loud:

“Hints on pronunciation for foreigners ”

by Anonymous (see note)

I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough. Others may stumble, but not you, On hiccough, thorough, lough* and through. Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, To learn of less familiar traps.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead-it’s said like bed, not bead. For goodness sake, don’t call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat. They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother, And here is not a match for there, Nor dear and fear for pear and bear. And then there’s dose and rose and lose Just look them up–and goose and choose. And cork and work and card and ward. And font and front and word and sword. And do and go, then thwart and cart. Come, come I’ve hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive, I’d mastered it when I was five!

*Laugh has been changed to lough, which is pronounced “lock” and is suggested as the original spelling here.

NOTE: For interesting tidbits about the origins of this poem, see the comments on this blog post .

What does this poem show us about the need for phonetic description?

In addition to variations of pronunciation of the same groupings of letters, the same word, with the same spelling, can have different pronunciations by different people (for example, because of different dialects). The point here is that English spelling does not clearly and consistently represent the sounds of language. In fact, English writing is infamous for that problem.There are lots of subtle differences between pronunciations, and these can’t always be explained with traditional casual ways of explanation. We need a very systematic and formal way to describe how every sound is made. That’s what phonetics is for.

What is Phonetics?

Phonetics looks at human speech from three distinct but interdependent viewpoints:

• Articulatory phonetics (The  Production of Speech)…studies how speech sounds are produced.
• Auditory phonetics (The  Perception of Speech)…studies the way in which humans perceive sounds.
• Acoustic phonetics (The  Physics of Speech)…studies the physical properties of speech sounds.

Articulatory Phonetics

When people play a clarinet or similar instrument, they can make different sounds by closing the tube in different places or different ways. Human speech works the same way: we make sound by blowing air through our tube (from the lungs, up the throat, and out the mouth and/or nose), and we change sounds by changing the way the air flows and/or closing the tube in different places or in different ways.

There are three basic ways we can change a sound, and they correspond to three basic phonetic “features”. (The way I am categorizing features here may be different than what’s presented in some readings; there are lots of different theories about how to organize phonetic features.) They are as follows:

• We can change the way the air comes out of our lungs in the first place, by letting our vocal folds vibrate or not vibrate. This is called voicing . (Voicing is also closely related to aspiration , although they are realized in different ways. The complex relationship between voicing and aspiration is beyond the scope of this subject; for our purposes, you can just treat them as the same thing, and you can use the terms “voiced” and “unaspirated” interchangeably, and use the terms “voiceless” and “aspirated” interchangeably.)
• We can change the way that we close the tube—for example, completely closing the tube will create a one kind of sound, whereas than just narrowing it a little to make the air hiss will create a different kind of sound. This aspect of how we make sound is called manner of articulation .
• We can change the place that we close the tube — for example, putting our two lips together creates a “closure” further up the tube than touching our tongue to the top of our mouth does. This aspect of how we make sound is called  place of articulation (“articulation” means movement, and we close our tube by moving something—moving the lips to touch each other, moving the tip of the tongue to touch the top of the mouth, etc.—, so “place of articulation” means “the place that you move to close your mouth).

Articulatory phonetics investigates how speech sounds are produced. This involves some basic understanding of

• The anatomy of speech i.e. the lungs, the larynx and the vocal tract;
• Airstream mechanisms, that is, the mechanisms involved in initiating and producing the types of airstreams used for speech.

Adopting anatomical and physiological criteria, phoneticians define segmental (i.e. the sounds of speech) and suprasegmental (e.g. tonal phenomena).

The Anatomy of Speech

Three central mechanisms are responsible for the production of speech:

• Respiration: The lungs produce the necessary energy in form of a stream of air.
• Phonation: The larynx serves as a modifier to the airstream and is responsible for phonation.
• Articulation: The vocal tract modifies and modulates the airstream by means of several articulators.

Respiration

Before any sound can be produced at all, there has to be some form of energy. In speech, the energy takes the form of a stream of air normally coming from the lungs. Lung air is referred to as pulmonic air.

The respiratory system is used in normal breathing and in speech and is contained within the chest or thorax. Within the thoracic cavity are the lungs, which provide the reservoir for pulmonic airflow in speech.

The lungs are connected to the trachea, by two bronchial tubes which join at the base of the trachea. At the lower end of the thoracic cavity we find the dome-shaped diaphragm which is responsible for thoracic volume changes during respiration. The diaphragm separates the lungs from the abdominal cavity and lower organs.

The larynx consists of a number of cartilages which are interconnected by complex joints and move about these joints by means of muscular and ligamental force. The larynx has several functions:

• the protective function
• the respiratory function
• the function in speech

The primary biological function of the larynx is to act as a valve, by closing off air from the lungs or preventing foreign substances from entering the trachea. The principal example of this protective function of the larynx is the glottal closure, during which the laryngeal musculature closes the airway while swallowing.

During respiration, the larynx controls the air-flow from subglottal to supraglottal regions. Normally, humans breathe about 15 times per minute (2 sec. inhaling, 2 sec. exhaling). Breathing for speech has a different pattern than normal breathing. Speaking may require a deeper, more full breath than regular inhalation and such inhalation would be done at different intervals. A speaker’s breathing rate is no longer a regular pattern of fifteen to twenty breaths a minute, but rather is sporadic and irregular, with quick inhalation and a long, drawn out, controlled exhalation (exhaling can last 10 to 15 seconds).In speech production, the larynx modifies the air-flow from the lungs in such a way as to produce an acoustic signal. The result are various types of phonation.

• Normal voice

The most important effect of vocal fold action is the production of audible vibration – a buzzing sound, known as voice or vibration. Each pulse of vibration represents a single opening and closing movement of the vocal folds. The number of cycles per second depends on age and sex. Average male voices vibrate at 120 cycles per second, women’s voices average 220 cycles per second.

Articulation

Once the air passes through the trachea and the glottis, it enters a long tubular structure known as the vocal tract. Here, the airstream is affected by the action of several mobile organs, the active articulators. Active articulators include the lower lip, tongue, and glottis. They are actively involved in the production of speech sounds.

The active articulators are supported by a number of passive articulators, i.e. by specific organs or locations in the vocal tract which are involved in the production of speech sounds but do not move. These passive articulators include the palate, alveola, ridge, upper and lower teeth, nasal cavity, velum, pharynx, epiglottis, and trachea.

The production of speech sounds through these organs is referred to as articulation .

Articulation of Consonants in North American English

Introduction to Articulatory Phonetics licensed CC BY .

Articulation of Vowel Sounds in North American English

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The International Phonetic Alphabet ( IPA ) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of speech sounds in written form. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators and translators.

The IPA is designed to represent those qualities of speech that are part of sounds in oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and syllables.

IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a single letter, [t] , or with a letter plus diacritics, [t̺ʰ] , depending on how precise one wishes to be. Slashes are used to signal phonemic transcription; thus /t/ is more abstract than either [t̺ʰ] or [t] and might refer to either, depending on the context and language.

This website shows the sounds from American English represented with the IPA. In addition, you can type in any English word and get the phonetic conversion!

Suprasegmental Features

Vowels and consonants are the basic segments of speech. Together, they form syllables, larger units, and eventually utterances. Superimposed on the segments are a number of additional features known as suprasegmental or prosodic features. They do not characterize a single segment but a succession of segments. The most important suprasegmental features are:

In a spoken utterance the syllables are never produced with the same intensity. Some syllables are unstressed (weaker), others stressed (stronger).

A stressed syllable is produced by an increase in respiratory activity, i.e. more air is pushed out of the lungs.

The video below suggests that chimpanzees can speak. Is that true? HInt: Think about anatomical reasons that chimpanzees may or may not be able to speak.

Auditory Phonetics

Auditory phonetics investigates the processes underlying human speech perception. The starting point for any auditory analysis of speech is the study of the human hearing system i.e. the anatomy and physiology of the ear and the brain.

Since the hearing system cannot react to all features present in a sound wave, it is essential to determine what we perceive and how we perceive it. This enormously complex field is referred to as speech perception .

This area is not only of interest to phonetics but is also the province of experimental psychology.

The Auditory System

The auditory system consists of three central components:

• The outer ear – modifies the incoming sound signal and amplifies it at the eardrum.
• The middle ear – improves the signal and transfers it to the inner ear.
• The inner ear – converts the signal from mechanical vibrations into nerve impulses and transmits it to the brain via the auditory nerve.

The outer ear consists of the visible part, known as the auricle or pinna, and of the interior part. The auricle helps to focus sound waves into the ear, and supports our ability to locate the source of a sound.

From here, the ear canal, a 2.5 cm long tube, leads to the eardrum.The main function of the ear canal is to filter out tiny substances that might approach the eardrum. Furthermore, it amplifies certain sound frequencies(esp.between 3, 000 and 4, 000 Hz) and protects the eardrum from changes in temperature as well as from damage.

Behind the eardrum lies the middle ear, a cavity which is filled with air via the Eustachian tube (which is linked to the back of the nose and throat).

The primary function of the middle ear is to convert the sound vibrations at the eardrum into mechanical movements. This is achieved by a system of three small bones, known as the auditory ossicles. They are named after their shape:

• the malleus (hammer)
• the incus (anvil)
• the stapes (stirrup)

When the eardrum vibrates due to the varying air pressure caused by the sound waves, it causes the three small bones, the so-called ossicles, to move back and forth. These three bones transmit the vibrations to the membrane-covered oval opening of the inner ear. Together, the ossicles function as a kind of leverage system, amplifying the vibrations by a factor of over 30 dB by the time they reach the inner ear.

The inner ear contains the vestibular organ with the semi-circular canals, which control our sense of balance, and the cochlea, a coiled cavity about 35 mm long, resembling a snail’s shell. The cochlea is responsible for converting sounds which enter the ear canal, from mechanical vibrations into electrical signals. The mechanical vibrations are transmitted to the oval window of the inner ear via the stapes (stirrup). The conversion process, known as transduction, is performed by specialized sensory cells within the cochlea. The electrical signals, which code the sound’s characteristics, are carried to the brain by the auditory nerve.

The cochlea is divided into three chambers by the basilar membrane. The upper chamber is the scala vestibuli and the bottom chamber is the scala tympani. They are both filled with a clear viscous fluid called perilymph. Between these two chambers is the cochlea duct, which is filled with endolymph.

On the basilar membrane rests the organ of Corti which contains a systematic arrangement of hair cells which pick up the pressure movements along the basilar membrane where different sound frequencies are mapped onto different membrane sites from apex to base.

The hair cells bend in wave-like actions in the fluid and set off nerve impulses which then pass through the auditory nerve to the hearing center of the brain. Short hair cell fibres respond to high frequencies and longer fibres respond to lower frequencies.

Speech Perception

Since the hearing system cannot react to all features present in a sound wave, it is essential to determine what we perceive and how we perceive it. This enormously complex field is referred to as speech perception. Two questions have dominated research:

• Acoustic cues: Does the speech signal contain specific perceptual cues?
• Theories of Speech Perception: How can the process of speech perception be modeled?

A further important issue in speech perception, which is also the province of experimental psychology, is whether it is a continuous or – as often assumed – a categorical process.

Acoustic Cues

The speech signal presents us with far more information than we need in order to recognize what is being said. Yet, our auditory system is able to focus our attention on just the relevant auditory features of the speech signal – features that have come to be known as acoustic cues:

• Voice Onset Time (VOT): the acoustic cue for the voiceless/voiced distinction
• F2-transition : the acoustic cue for place of articulation
• Frequency cues

The importance of these small auditory events has led to the assumption that speech perception is by and large not a continuous process, but rather a phenomenon that can be described as discontinuous or categorical perception .

Voice Onset Time

The voice onset time (VOT) is the point when vocal fold vibration starts relative to the release of a closure, i.e.the interval of voicing prior to a voiced sound. It is crucial for us to discriminate between clusters such as [ pa ] or [ ba ]. It is a well-established fact that a gradual delay of VOT does not lead to a differentiation between voiceless and voiced consonants. Rather, a VOT-value of around 30 msecs serves as the key factor. In other words:

• If VOT is longer than 30 msecs, we hear a voiced sound, such as [ ba ],
• If VOT is shorter than 30 msecs, the perceptual result is [ pa ].

F2 Transition

The formant pattern of vowels in isolation differs enormously from that of vowels embedded in a consonantal context. If a consonant precedes a vowel, e.g. ka/ba/etc, the second formant (F2) seems to emerge from a certain frequency region, the so-called F2-locus. It seems that speech perception is sensitive to the transition of F2 and that F2-transition is an important cue in the perception of speech. In other words, the F2 frequency of the vowel determines whether or not the initial consonant sound is clear.

Frequency Cues

The frequency of certain parts of the sound wave helps to identify a large number of speech sounds. Fricative consonants, such as [s], for example, involve a partial closure of the vocal tract, which produces a turbulence in the air flow and results in a noisy sound without clear formant structure spreading over a broad frequency range. This friction noise is relatively unaffected by the context in which the fricative occurs and may thus serve as a nearly invariant cue for its identification.

However, the value of frequency cues is only relative since the perception of fricatives is also influenced by the fricative’s formant transitions.

Theories of Speech Perception

Speech perception begins with a highly complex, continuously varying, acoustic signal and ends with a representation of the phonological features encoded in that signal. There are two groups of theories that model this process:

• Passive theories: This group views the listener as relatively passive and speech perception as primarily sensory. The message is filtered and mapped directly onto the acoustic-phonetic features of language.
• Active theories: This group views the listener as more active and postulates that speech perception involves some aspects of speech production; the signal is sensed and analysed by reference to how the sounds in the signal are produced.

Passive Theories

Passive theories of speech perception emphasize the sensory side of the perceptual process and relegate the process of speech production to a minor role. They postulate the use of stored neural patterns which may be innate. Two influential passive theories have emerged:

• The Theory of Template Matching Templates are innate recognition devices that are rudimentary at birth and tuned as language is acquired.

• The Feature Detector Theory Feature detectors are specialized neural receptors necessary for the generation of auditory patterns.

Active Theories

Active theories assume that the process of speech perception involves some sort of internal speech production, i.e. the listener applies his articulatory knowledge when he analyzes the incoming signal. In other words: the listener acts not only when he produces speech, but also when he receives it.

Two influential active theories have emerged:

• The Motor Theory of Perception According to the motor theory, reference to your own articulatory knowledge is manifested via direct comparison with articulatory patterns.

• The Analysis-by-Synthesis Theory The analysis-by-synthesis theory postulates that the reference to your own articulation is via neurally generated auditory patterns.

The McGurk Effect

The McGurk effect is a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. The illusion occurs when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound. The visual information a person gets from seeing a person speak changes the way they hear the sound. If a person is getting poor quality auditory information but good quality visual information, they may be more likely to experience the McGurk effect.

You are invited to participate in a little experiment on perception. In the video below you see a mouth speaking four items. Your tasks are the following:

• Watch the mouth closely, but concentrate on what you hear.
• Now close your eyes. Play the clip again.
• What did you perceive when you saw and heard the video clip? What did you perceive when you just heard the items?

Acoustic Phonetics

Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of the speech signal. This includes the physical characteristics of human speech, such as frequencies, friction noise, etc.

There are numerous factors that complicate the straightforward analysis of the speech signal, for example, background noises, anatomical and physiological differences between speakers etc.

These and other aspects contributing to the overall speech signal are studied under the heading of acoustic phonetics.

Sound Waves

Sound originates from the motion or vibration of a sound source, e.g. from a tuning fork. The result of this vibration is known as a simple sound wave, which can be mathematically modeled as a sine wave. Most sources of sounds produce complex sets of vibrations. They arise from the combination of a number of simple sound waves.

Speech involves the use of complex sound waves because it results from the simultaneous use of many sound sources in the vocal tract.

The vibration of a sound source is normally intensified by the body around it. This intensification is referred to as resonance. Depending on the material and the shape of this body, several resonance frequencies are produced.

Simple sound waves are produced by a simple source, e.g. the vibration of a tuning fork. They are regular in motion and are referred to as periodic. Two properties are central to the measurement of simple sound waves: the frequency and the amplitude.

Practically every sound we hear is not a pure tone but a complex tone; its wave form is not simple but complex. Complex wave forms are synthesized from a sufficient number of simple sound waves. There are two types of complex wave forms:

• periodic complex sound waves
• aperiodic complex sound waves

Speech makes use of both kinds. Vowels, for example, are basically periodic, whereas consonants range from periodic to aperiodic:

• the vowel [ a ], periodic
• the consonant [ n ], periodic
• the consonant [ s ], aperiodic
• the consonant [ t ], aperiodic

The sound wave created by a sound source is referred to as the fundamental frequency or F0 (US: “F zero”).

On a musical instrument, F0 is the result of the vibration of a string or a piece of reed. In speech, it is the result of vocal fold vibration.

In both cases, F0 is a complex sound wave which is filtered (intensified and damped) by numerous parts of the resonating body. The resulting bundles of resonance frequencies or  harmonics  are multiples of F0. They are called  formants  and are numbered F1, F2 and so on.

In speech, these formants can be associated with certain parts of the vocal tract, on a musical instrument they are multiples of F0. For example, on an oboe F0 is the result of the vibration of the reed. This fundamental frequency is intensified (and damped) by the resonating body. As a result, a number of harmonics or formant frequencies are created as multiples of the frequency of F0.

Attributions:

Content adapted from the following:

VLC102 – Speech Science by Jürgen Handke, Peter Franke, Linguistic Engineering Team under CC BY 4.0

“ International Phonetic Alphabet ” licensed under CC BY SA .

“ McGurk Effect ” licensed under CC BY SA .

Introduction to Linguistics by Stephen Politzer-Ahles . CC-BY-4.0 .

More than Words: The Intersection of Language and Culture Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Karen Palmer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Apr 28, 2020

What are the different types of speech sounds?

Updated: Mar 24, 2023

Did you know there are different types of speech sounds? Have you worked with a child in the past who has focused on back sounds, or flow sounds, and wondered what does that mean?

Well, us humans are clever things and utilise different parts of our mouth and throat, controlling airflow in particular ways to produce a range of sounds. As a native English speaker, I’ll focus on English sounds but there may be some theory you can put towards sounds in any other language you are using with your child.

Voice, Place, Manner

This is the foundation phrase Speech and Language Therapists use when referring to speech sounds. Some sounds can be loud, like a D or V sound and others can be quiet or whispered like a T or H. This refers to the use of voice , utilising the voice box for the louder sounds and switching it off (or not vibrating the vocal folds) for quieter sounds.

When looking at place , this refers to where in the mouth the sound is made i.e. at the front or the back, with the tongue, teeth or lips.

The Manner of articulation indicates air flow and whether a speech sound is made when the air flow is stopped, allowed to flow a little or whether it is a sound made when the air flows out of the nose (like when producing a M sound).

Different places of Articulation

We make speech sounds in a few different places in our mouth and throat.

Lip sounds - these sounds are made by using the lips in some sort of way. P, B and M are made with both lips pressed together, W is made with lips rounded and F and V are made with the bottom lip tucked under the top front teeth.

Alveolar sounds- this refers to the hard palatal ridge just behind your top teeth. Here we make the T, D, N, S, Z, L, SH, CH, J. These are also referred to as front sounds .

Back sounds - sounds made towards the back of the mouth include K, G, NG. There are some other sounds made here in other languages, for example the Spanish ‘j’, Greek Ɣ and German ‘ch’.

Glide sounds - these are made when articulators move, R, L, W, Y.

Stop and flow sounds

Some of the sounds that we produce are made when the airflow is stopped and then released. Think of the ‘p’ sound. We produce this sound by pressing our lips together and letting air come out of our lungs but stopping it with our closed lips. Then we release the lips and the ‘puh’ sound is made.

The same thing happens for the ‘t’ sound, except this time we use the tongue tip on the ridge behind the teeth (the alveolar ridge) to stop the air flow and then release to make the ‘tuh’ sound. Try it.

The technical term for these ‘stoppy sounds’ is plosive . Stop sounds used in English are P, B, T, D, K, G.

Other speech sounds are made by letting the air flow through our articulators. Like the ‘s’ sound. For this sound we hover the tongue tip on the ridge behind the top teeth and let the air flow through to make the ‘sss’ sound.

Now try with the ‘f’ sound. For this we need to trap the bottom lip under the top teeth gently so that we can let the air flow to make this sound. This is one of my favourite sounds to help children with because we can make a rabbit face.

The technical term for ‘flowy sounds’ is fricative. Flow sounds in English are F, V, TH, S, Z, SH, H.

How can we tell there is a problem?

When speech sound difficulties occur, it is usually because a child is replacing one type of speech sounds with another. For example, they may be replacing a front sound T with a back sound K/C (saying key instead of tea ). OR they may replace a flow sound F with a stop sound D (saying dock for sock ).

A Speech and Language Therapist will be able to use samples of a child’s speech, usually with a picture naming assessment, to figure out what sounds a child can say, what sounds are missing or replaced, if the child has any particular difficulty with saying a type of sound and then decide on the best way to help make these difficulties better.

If this all sounds interesting to you, I go into much more depth and theory in my online course Speech Sounds: Steps to Success . We look at types of speech sound difficulties and common replacement patterns, as well as the development of speech sounds and the age children are expected to be able to produce certain types of sounds. Then we go on to look at fun ways to remedy speech sounds at different stages of their journey, from producing single sounds to being able to use their target sounds in sentences.

There's also my Speech Sounds Games & Activities eBook (available as an instant download) which contains my favourite games to play when working on speech sound difficulties, using target sound picture and games where you don’t need pictures.

I have also created a FREE information sheet of the ages and stages of speech sound development, perfect to help you work out what sounds your child should be making at which age. Click here to get the FREEBIE!

If you’d like more advice, tips and freebies relating to working with children who have speech and language difficulties, make sure you’re signed up to receive my regular newsletters. Click here to join.

• Speech Sounds

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WHAT ARE THE 44 SOUNDS OF ENGLISH?

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Despite there being just 26 letters in the English language New Zealand English has 44 speech sounds, also known as phonemes. The 44 sounds help distinguish one word or meaning from another. Various letters and letter combinations known as graphemes are used to represent the sounds.

• A consonant sound (phoneme) is produced when the lips, teeth and tongue partly or completely restrict the airflow. The voice is either turned on ( voiced ) or off ( voiceless ). Continuant sounds can be stretched out – you can hold onto them, like /mmmmm/; Stop sounds can’t be stretched out, like /p/. It’s important to say individual sounds clearly, without adding ‘uh’ after them: say “mmm” not “muh”, and “t” not “tuh”.
• Vowel sounds (phonemes) have free airflow – they are shaped by the tongue and lips and different levels of mouth opening. All vowels are voiced and stretchy.Thank you to Emma Nahna for creating this document and download for the deb community

Emma Nahna, Literacy Coach, PLD Facilitator, Speech Language Therapist saying the Speech Sounds of New Zealand.

The deb would like to thank Emma Nahna, Literacy Coach, PLD Facilitator, Speech Language Therapist for creating this document on Oral Language for the members of the deb. The full document can be downloaded below.

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English CONSONANTS IPA & EXAMPLES

English consonant sounds ipa (international phonetic alphabet), with voice recorder & audio files.

See examples of each of the IPA Consonant Sounds with examples in common English words. You can listen to each English consonant sound pronounced by a native English speaker and practise your pronunciation of each consonant sound. 

What are the English Consonant Sound IPA symbols (International Phonetic Alphabet)? English has 24 consonant sounds. Some consonants have voice from the voicebox and some don’t. These consonants are voiced and voiceless pairs /p/ /b/, /t/ /d/, /k/ /g/, /f/ /v/, /s/ /z/, / θ/ /ð/, /ʃ/ /ʒ/, /ʈʃ/ /dʒ/. These consonants are voiced /h/, /w/, /n/, /m/, /r/, /j/, /ŋ/, /l/.

I understand that for many people, the IPA symbols can look a little overwhelming. But remember, you don’t have to know every IPA symbol for it to be seriously helpful for improving your English pronunciation.

Watch this video lesson on English consonant sounds with IPA, the International Phonetic Symbols to revise all the consonants in English. 

Before we get started, let’s go over two things you need to know about the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). 

Even if you don’t know all the English Consonant IPA symbols, still use the IPA for important information such as:  

– when you see the two dots /:/ it means the sound is long  – each symbol represents a sound  – when you see this dash /’/ it means the next syllable is stressed

Why is the IPA so helpful for English pronunciation? The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a very helpful tool for learners of English because English is not a phonetic language. The spelling of an English word doesn’t tell us how to pronounce it. In English, several different letter combinations can be used to spell the same sound and there are silent letters. The IPA tells us exactly the correct sounds and word stress for pronouncing English words. 

  RECORD & PRACTICE English Consonant Sounds Examples 

VOICED & UNVOICED CONSONANT SOUNDS

Let’s talk about voicing. Voiced and unvoiced pairs. 

The first 8 boxes below show the consonant sounds IPA symbols for voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs.  English consonants can be unvoiced and voiced.

An unvoiced consonant means that there is is no vibration or voice coming from the voicebox when the sound is pronounced. Examples of unvoiced consonant sounds are /s/, /p/ and /t/. 

A voiced consonant means that there is voice or vibration coming from the voicebox when the sound is pronounced. Examples of voiced consonant sounds are /v/, /b/ and /g/. 

A consonant pair is when the mouth position required to make two sounds is the same, but one sound in unvoiced and one sound is voiced. 

We have put the voiced and unvoiced pairs in the box together. Remember that the mouth position for the pair is exactly the same, the only difference is that one is voiced and one isn’t.

For example, the mouth position required to make the sounds /p/ and /b/ is exactly the same, /p/ has no voice and /b/ is voiced.

/f/ and /v/ require exactly the same mouth position, /f/ is unvoiced and /v/ is voiced. 

Refresh your consonant sounds ipa symbols now with the tools below. 

TOP TIPS FOR REVISING CONSONANT SOUNDS IPA SYMBOLS WITH EXAMPLES

Don’t worry too much about voicing. It is not really very important for how clear your English is to listeners.

You need to focus on your mouth position. Are you pronouncing each consonant clearly? 

Pay careful attention to consonant sounds at the ends of words. Consonant sounds at the ends of words are very important for speaking clearly in English.

For example, when pronouncing /k/ in the word ‘back’, make sure you can clearly hear the /k/ sound at the end. It is strong or stressed but it does need t be there.

Consonant Sounds – Voiced & Unvoiced Pairs With International Phonetic Symbols – IPA

/p/ pay  / peɪ / happy   / ˈhæ.pi / cup  / kʌp /

/b/ bay  /b eɪ /   trouble   / ˈtrʌ.b ə l / rub   /r ʌb /

Listen to the Native Speaker

/t/ tip  / tɪp / letter  / ˈle.tə /   sat    / sæt /

/d/ dip  /d ɪp /   ladder  / ˈlæ.də / sad    / sæd /

/k/ came  / keɪm /   talking  / tɔː.k ɪŋ /   back  / bæk /

/g/ game   /g eɪm / bigger  / ˈ bɪ.ɡ ə / bag  / bæg /

/f/ fine  / faɪn /   offer  / ˈɒ.fə /   off  / ɒf /

/v/ vine  /v aɪn /   saving   / ˈseɪ.vɪŋ / of  / ɒv /

/θ/ thin  / θɪn /   method  / ˈme.θəd /   both  / boʊθ /

/ð/ then  / ðen / other  / ˈʌ.ðə /   with  / wɪð /

/s/ sue /su:/  missing  / ˈmɪ.sɪŋ /   face  / feɪs /

/z/ zoo /zu:/ crazy  / ˈkreɪ.zi / phase  / feɪz /

/ʃ/ show  / ʃoʊ /   pushing  / ˈpʊ.ʃɪŋ /   rush  / rʌʃ /

/ʒ/ measure  / ˈme.ʒə /   asia   / ˈeɪ.ʒə / vision  / ˈvɪ.ʒ ə n /

/ʧ/ choke  / tʃoʊk /   watching  / ˈ wɒ.tʃɪŋ /   catch / kætʃ /

/ʤ/ joke  / dʒoʊk /   charging  / ˈ tʃɑː.dʒɪŋ /   large  / lɑːdʒ /

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5 emails – start today, key areas of difficulty for speakers of your first language, record a clear and professional voicemail greeting, how problems with your pronunciation affect clarity, improve your word stress, emphasis & rhythm in english, improve some key vowel sounds that are important for clear english, correct many commonly mispronounced words, tips on how to improve your pronunciation and fluency in your day to day life, and lots more....

Consonant Sounds – Voiced Consonants

The consonant sounds IPA symbols below are all voiced but do not have a voiced pair. 

The consonant IPA symbols /m/, /n/ and  /ŋ/ are all called nasal sounds, because when we make them the air passes through our nose, not out of the mouth. As you go through these sounds, check your /m/ and /n/ at the ends of words. 

/l/ love  / lʌv /   follow  / ˈfɑː.loʊ /   well  / wel /  

/m/ mail  / meɪ.jəl / humour  / ˈhjuː.mə /   some  / sʌm /

/n/ nail  /n eɪ.jəl / funny  / ˈfʌ.ni /   nine  / naɪn /

/ŋ/ singer  / ˈsɪ.ŋə /   sing / sɪŋ/

/h/ heal  / hiːl /   perhaps  / pəˈhæps /

/r/ real /ri:l/ correct  / kəˈrekt /

/j/ you  /ju:/ beyond  / biˈjɒnd /

/w/ we /wi:/  showing  / ˈʃoʊ.wɪŋ /

IPA C onsonant Sounds Chart pdf

Would you like to download a consonant sounds chart with examples in the IPA International Phonetic Alphabet in .pdf?

Click to download a .pdf all the consonant sounds chart with IPA symbols and examples in words. 

Print it and put it on your wall to learn and revise all the IPA symbols for consonant sounds in English. You’ll see the IPA symbol for each consonant and also examples of each consonant in words. See the full IPA for each word on the consonant sounds chart pdf.  

More IPA Consonant Sounds With Examples

Here are some more examples of consonants sounds in the IPA with full IPA transcription for words with each consonant sound.

See the full IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols for each consonant sound here:

/p/       pet /pet/     paper /ˈpeɪ.pə/     top /tɒp/

/b/      bet /bet/     trouble /ˈtrʌ.bəl/     rub /rʌb/

/t/      Tim /tɪm/     better /ˈbe.tə/     hot /hɒt/

/d/     dim /dɪm/     order /ˈɔː.də/     bad /bæd/

/k/      came /keɪm/     talking /ˈtɔː.kɪŋ/     back /bæk/

/g/      game /geɪm/     bigger /ˈbɪ.gə/     bag /bæg/

/f/       fine /faɪn/     offer /ˈɒf.ə/     off /ɒf/

/v/      vine /vaɪn/     saving /ˈseɪ.vɪŋ/     of /ɒv/ 

/s/      seal /si:l/     missing /ˈmɪ.sɪŋ/     face /feɪs/

/z/      zeal /zi:l/     crazy /ˈkreɪ.zi/     phase /feɪz/

/ʃ/      show /ʃoʊ/     pushing /ˈpʊ.ʃɪŋ/     rush /rʌʃ/

/ʒ/       measure /ˈme.ʒə/     vision /ˈvɪ.ʒən/       asia /ˈeɪ.ʒə/

/ʧ/      choke /ʧoʊk/     watching /wɒ.tʃɪŋ/     catch /kætʃ/

/ʤ/    joke /ʤoʊk/     damage /ˈdæ.mɪdʒ/     large /lɑːdʒ/

/θ/     thin /θɪn/     method /ˈme.θəd/     both /boʊθ/

/ð /      then /ðen/     other /ˈʌ.ðə/     with /wɪð/

/l/        love /lʌv/     follow /ˈfɒː.loʊ/     well /wel/

/m/     mail /meɪl/     humour /ˈhjuː.mə/     some /sʌm/

/n/       nail /neɪl/      funny /ˈfʌ.ni/      fine /faɪn/

/ŋ/      sing /sɪŋ/     singer /ˈsɪ.ŋə/

/h/      heal /hi:l/     perhaps /pəˈhæps/

/r/        real /ri:l/     correct /kəˈrekt/

/j/        you /ju:/     beyond /biˈjɒnd/

/w/     we /wi/     showing /ˈʃoʊ.wɪŋ/

Here are the answers to questions we are often asked by students who are revising consonants sounds IPA. 

What is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?  The IPA is set of symbols where each symbol represents a speech sound or tells us where the word stress is. The IPA for English has 44 symbols. The dash /ˈ/ indicates that the next syllable is stressed.  

Should I learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?  If you are serious about improving your English pronunciation then it is helpful to learn the IPA. The IPA is the most reliable way to find out the correct pronunciation of English words. It provides important information such as where the word stress is and which consonant and vowel sounds to use in every word. 

Do I need to learn all the IPA symbols? No, I suggest you just learn the IPA symbols for the sounds that you have difficulty with. Try and identify which sounds are difficult for you and learn the IPA symbols for them. Also you remember that  the two dots /:/ are a long vowel, when you see two vowel symbols it means it’s a double or diphthong, when you see this dash /’/ it means the next syllable is stressed. 

What is the best way for me to see the IPA?  The best way to check the IPA is using a reliable dictionary. I have found the most reliable source to be the Cambridge Online Dictionary . The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) dictionary is excellent, you can see clearer the each IPA symbol and the word stress marked in. You can also click to hear the word in a British and American style English. 

See an example of Consonant Sounds in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with word stress too as shown in the dictionary – Cambridge Dictionary Online.          

English has fifteen vowel sounds represented by the letters a, e, i, o, and u. The letters y, w, and gh are also commonly used in vowel sound-spellings. Vowel sounds are produced with a relatively open vocal tract. Consonant sounds, in contrast, are created by pushing air through a small opening in the vocal tract or by building up air in the vocal tract, then releasing it.

Vowel sounds are divided into the following three categories:

• Long vowels (vowels that sound like the letter name)
• Short vowels (the most common sound for a single vowel spelling)
• Other vowels (the remaining vowel sounds)

The long vowel sounds are not pronounced for longer time than short vowel sounds! It is important for ESL/ELL/EFL students to realize that the terms "long" and "short" are not describing the length of time a vowel sound is said.

These archaic terms are still in popular use in American classrooms and online. They are used here to give a name to a vowel sound so when the sound is discussed, the name and not the sound (which many beginner students cannot yet hear correctly) is used.

If you are interested in knowing how to pronounce all vowels sound click here

At their simplest, short vowel sounds are usually spelled with a single letter, while long vowel and other vowel sounds are generally spelled with combinations of letters. This should not be taken as a strict rule when learning English pronunciation, however, as there are a large number of exceptions.

Many spelling patterns of English pronunciation have the possibility of two or more pronunciations using that single spelling. For example, the letters 'e-a' have a different pronunciation in the words team (long e /i/) and dead (short e /ɛ/). It is helpful to learn the common spellings for each vowel sound along with knowing all the possible pronunciations for each spelling.

The English language also has a large number of words that are not pronounced the way their spelling suggests. These are called non-phonetic words and must be memorized individually.

What are the English Vowel Sound IPA symbols (International Phonetic Alphabet)? English has 20 vowel sounds.

Short vowels in the IPA are:

/ɪ/ – fit /fiːt/, pick /piːk/, difficult /ˈdɪ.fɪ.kəlt/

/e/ – pet /pet/, sent /sent/, attention /əˈten.ʃən/

/æ/ – pat /pæt/, flat /flæt/, family /ˈfæ.mə.li/

/ʌ/ – cut /kʌt/ jump /dʒʌmp/, cover /ˈkʌ.vər/

/ʊ/ – put /pʊt/, book /bʊk/, cushion /ˈkʊ.ʃən/

/ɒ/ – pot /pɒt/, dog /dɒg/, hospital /ˈhɒs.pɪ.təl/

/ə/ – about /əˈbaʊt/, system /ˈsɪs.təm/, complete /kəmˈpliːt/.

Long vowels in the IPA are:

/i:/ week /wi:k/, feet /fi:t/, media /ˈmiː.di.jə/

/ɑ:/ hard /ha:/, park /pa:k/, article /ɑː.tɪ.kəl/

/ɔ:/ fork /fɔ:k/, walk /wɔ:k/, August /ɔːˈɡʌst/

/ɜ:/ heard /hɜ:d/, word /wɜ:d/, surface /ˈsɜː.fɪs/

/u:/ boot /bu:t/, group /gru:p/, beautiful /ˈbjuː.tɪ.fəl/

Diphthong vowels (double) in the IPA are:

/eɪ/ place /pleɪs/, late /leɪt/, dangerous /ˈdeɪn.dʒə.rəs/

/oʊ/ home /hoʊm/, phone /foʊn/, global /ˈɡloʊ.bəl/

/aʊ/ mouse /maʊs/, brown /braʊn/, accountant /əˈkaʊn.t̬ənt/

/ɪə/ clear /klɪə/, fear /fɪə/, career /kəˈrɪə/

/eə/ care /keə/, wear /weə/, declare /dɪˈkleə/

/ɔɪ/ boy /bɔɪ/, toy /tɔɪ/, enjoyable /ɪnˈdʒɔɪ.jə.bəl/

/aɪ/ find /faɪnd/, bite /baɪt/, tiger /ˈtaɪ.ɡə/

/ʊə/ tour /tʊə/, pure /pʊə/, mature /məˈtʃʊə/

How can I improve my English pronunciation for free?

Being understood requires good pronunciation. Correct word pronunciation requires continual practice and drills. You must be aware of word pronunciation and how to pronounce words correctly. Any English student may master excellent pronunciation with some time, persistence, and probably some app assistance.

For ESL students, pronunciation is a crucial ability to develop. The applications for testing pronunciation and listening accuracy are listed below.

Do you find it difficult to pronounce English words correctly or to comprehend the phonetic alphabet's symbols?

The collection of English pronunciation tools of the EnglishPhonetics below is for anyone learning the language who want to practice their pronunciation at any time or place.

(FREE) English Accent Speaking test with Voice and Video

Take a Pronunciation Test | Fluent American Accent Training

The best interactive tool to the IPA chart sounds

Listen to all International Phonetics Alphabet sounds, learn its subtle differences

American English IPA chart

Listen the American english sounds with the interactive phonics panel

Free English voice accent and pronunciation test

Get a score that informs your speaking skills

To Phonetics Transcription (IPA) and American Pronunciation voice

Online converter of English text to IPA phonetic transcription

Contrasting Sounds or Minimal Pairs Examples

Minimal pairs are an outstanding resource for english learning, linguist and for speech therapy

English pronunciation checker online

To check your pronunciation. Press the 'Record' button and say the phrase (a text box and 'Record' button). After you have spelled the word correctly, a 'speaking test' for the word will appear.

The [MOST] complete Glossary of Linguistic Terms

The meaning of " linguistics " is the science of studying the structure, transition, lineage, distribution, and interrelationships of human language.

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Eriberto Do Nascimento

Eriberto Do Nascimento has Ph.D. in Speech Intelligibility and Artificial Intelligence and is the founder of English Phonetics Academy