The British English IPA Phonetic Chart

This is our British English phonetic chart. It is the chart that we use in the Sounds British Interactive British IPA Chart eBook. It is also called the IPA chart and contains forty-four symbols. Each symbol represents a sound in English. It is important that you can distinguish each of the different sounds on the chart.

Some of these symbols in the IPA chart match the letters of the alphabet and have their usual English sound values. That is, the letter of the alphabet and the sound represented by the IPA symbol are always the same. This is only true of the following consonants: p, b, t, d, k, m, n, l, r, f, v, z, h, w. The rest of the consonant letters of the alphabet have no set sound value: c, g, j, q, s, x, y. Neither do the five vowel letters, which are: a, e, i, o, u.

Take the words cat and key for instance. Both begin with a different consonant letter. K is always pronounced as /k/ while C has no set sound value and its sound can change depending on the word in which it is found. In the case of the word cat, C is also pronounced as /k/, but it is not pronounced the same in the word chair. The IPA allows us to write down the actual sound of the word. cat becomes /kæt/ while key becomes /ki:/ and chair becomes /ʧeə/. Phonetic symbols representing sounds not letters will be written between forward slashes //. Anything you see written between forward slashes represents sounds not letters of the alphabet.

The vowels

On our chart, the vowels are in the top half of the chart in the red and green sections. The red section contains the pure vowels (monophtongs) and the green section contains the gliding vowels (diphthongs). A vowel is a sound which is produced with the whole vocal tract open so that there is no obstruction to the passage of air from the lungs and out of the nose and mouth. Vowels form the peak of syllables in words. For example, in the word vowel we have two syllables, vo and wel. You can see that both syllables contain a vowel sound supported by the consonants.

The Consonants

On our chart, the consonants are in the three rows in bottom blue section. A consonant is a basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partially obstructed, and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable. Consonants can only be produced with a vowel. There are twenty-one letters in the English alphabet which represent consonants. These are, B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually W and Y. The letter Y can be both a consonant, as in the word yolk, and a vowel, as in the word myth and the word funny. The letter W can also be a vowel sound in very rare words such as those borrowed from the Welsh, as in cwm.