In this video we are going to look at the IPA – the international phonetic alphabet. Yes, that’s right: the alphabet with many funny symbols, each representing a sound.

/heləʊ ɑ: jə redi tə lʊkæt ðə ɑɪ pi: eɪ/

This is: ‘Hello, are you ready to look at the IPA?’ in IPA. You are going to learn about the history of the IPA, the parts that make up the IPA – the 107 letters for sounds (consonants, vowels and diphthongs), 31 diacritics to show phonetic detail and 17 suprasegmentals (e.g. : – to show vowel length). You will learn what the IPA is used for and in which professions people use it.

At the end we are also going to talk about the SAMPA and we will look at phonemic transcriptions of SAMPA and IPA side by side. Please note that this video gives you a general overview of the IPA, not just the phonemic chart for English.

For more information, have a look here:

International Phonetic Association https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org

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