One of the reasons the International Phonetic Alphabet exists is to handle every human language with a single, consistent notation system. No matter which language you're learning, IPA can represent its sounds without needing a new alphabet.
This is a quick tour of 14 major languages and the IPA features that matter for each one.
Which languages are phonetic?
No language is perfectly phonetic, but some come close. If you know the rules, you can read a Spanish or Turkish word aloud the first time you see it. English and French sit at the other end, where the spelling often tells you little about the sound.
The ratings for the European languages come from Seymour, Aro and Erskine (2003), who tested children learning to read in 13 European languages and grouped the spelling systems from shallow (consistent) to deep (inconsistent). Children reading English took more than twice as long to reach basic reading as those in the shallow systems. The study did not include Turkish, Russian or any language outside Europe, so for those the table names the script and describes it in words instead of giving a score.
| Language | How regular is the spelling? | Example in IPA |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | High. In the study's second-shallowest group, with Greek and Italian. A letter or digraph almost always has one sound. | queso /keso/ |
| Italian | High. Same group as Spanish. Digraphs like gn and double consonants are read the same way every time. | gnocchi /ɲɔkki/ |
| German | High. Rated as shallow as Spanish, though its syllables are more complex. ä, ch and final consonants follow rules. | Brötchen /bʁøːtçən/ |
| Portuguese | Medium. The middle of the scale (the study rated European Portuguese). Vowels change with stress and position in the word. | pão /pɐ̃w̃/ |
| French | Low. Deep: many silent letters, and several spellings for one sound. | oiseau /wazo/ |
| English | Low. The deepest spelling system in the study. | colonel (UK) /kɜːnl̩/ |
| Turkish | Not rated. Latin alphabet, introduced in 1928. Close to one letter per sound; ğ is the main exception. | ışık /ɯˈʃɯk/ |
| Russian | Not rated. Cyrillic. Consonants are spelled consistently, but stress is not written and an unstressed o sounds like a. | корова /kɐrovə/ |
| Arabic | Not rated. Arabic script. Everyday text leaves out short vowels, so you need to know the word to say it. | مدرسة /madrasa/ |
| Japanese | Not rated. Kana spell sounds almost one to one; kanji do not show pronunciation, and pitch accent is never written. | 東京 /to̞ːkʲo̞ː/ |
| Korean | Not rated. Hangul is a regular alphabet, but sound changes between syllables are not written. | 국물 /kuŋmuɭ/ |
| Mandarin | Not rated. Characters rarely show pronunciation. Pinyin marks sounds and tones, but not tone changes between words. | 你好 /ni²¹⁴⁻³⁵xɑʊ̯²¹⁴⁻²¹⁽⁴⁾/ |
| Hindi | Not rated. Devanagari is regular letter by letter, but the vowel built into each consonant is often dropped in speech. | कमल /kəməl/ |
| Vietnamese | Not rated. Latin script (chữ Quốc ngữ) with tone marks. Close to sound, though some letters are said differently in the north and the south. | — |
Every example is written exactly as it appears in the pronunciation dictionaries IPAtics transcribes from. Vietnamese has no example because IPAtics does not transcribe it. Source: Seymour, P. H. K., Aro, M., & Erskine, J. M. (2003). Foundation literacy acquisition in European orthographies. British Journal of Psychology, 94(2), 143–174.
English
- Vowel inventory: ~15 distinct vowels (varies by dialect)
- Key challenges for learners: schwa /ə/, /θ/ and /ð/ (th sounds), /ɪ/ vs /iː/ (ship vs sheep)
- Notable features: heavy vowel reduction in unstressed syllables, complex consonant clusters
English is notorious for the mismatch between spelling and pronunciation. IPA matters here more than almost any other language.
Spanish
- Vowel inventory: 5 pure vowels (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/)
- Key challenges: rolled /r/, distinction between /b/ and /β/
- Notable features: highly regular spelling, so IPA mostly confirms what you expect
Spanish is a good "first IPA language" because the system rewards you with near-perfect consistency. The Spanish IPA chart gives every sound with an example word.
French
- Vowel inventory: 12-13 vowels including 3-4 nasalized (/ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɔ̃/, /œ̃/)
- Key challenges: nasal vowels, uvular /ʁ/, silent letters
- Notable features: liaison (silent consonants come back between words)
French spelling is ornamental — half the letters on the page don't correspond to sounds. IPA is essential for French pronunciation.
German
- Vowel inventory: 14+ vowels with length distinction
- Key challenges: /ç/ (ich-laut), /x/ (ach-laut), front rounded vowels /y/, /ø/
- Notable features: hard "t" at word-final position (Tag → /taːk/)
German spelling is more consistent than English but the sounds for ch, ig, and umlauts still need IPA to clarify. The full German IPA chart lists all of them.
Italian
- Vowel inventory: 7 vowels (open/closed e and o distinctions)
- Key challenges: double consonants (they're really pronounced longer), /ʎ/ for gli
- Notable features: stress usually falls on the second-to-last syllable, but the spelling marks it only on a final vowel, so many words have to be learned
- Full chart: the Italian IPA cheat sheet
Portuguese
- Vowel inventory: 7-9 oral vowels + nasalized counterparts
- Key challenges: /ɐ̃/, /õ/, /ẽ/ nasals, palatalized consonants, s/z reduction at word endings
- Notable features: European and Brazilian variants differ significantly
Brazilian and European Portuguese are close enough to share a dictionary but distant enough that IPA is the only way to communicate pronunciation precisely. For every Brazilian sound with an example word, see the Portuguese IPA cheat sheet.
Turkish
- Vowel inventory: 8 vowels with vowel harmony
- Key challenges: undotted ı /ɯ/, front rounded /y/ and /ø/
- Notable features: agglutinative — long words built from stems + suffixes, all following vowel harmony
Turkish spelling is almost perfectly phonetic, so IPA transcription often mirrors the written form. The tricky part is knowing how vowel harmony changes suffix vowels.
Russian
- Vowel inventory: 5 stressed vowels; unstressed vowels reduce heavily
- Key challenges: palatalized consonants (/tʲ/, /sʲ/, /lʲ/), hard vs soft consonant distinction
- Notable features: stress is unpredictable and affects vowel quality
In Russian, whether /o/ or /a/ is heard depends on whether the syllable is stressed. IPA makes this transparent. The Russian IPA chart sets out every sound, with hard and soft consonants side by side.
Arabic
- Vowel inventory: 3 short + 3 long (classical/MSA)
- Key challenges: pharyngeal /ħ/, /ʕ/; emphatic consonants /sˤ/, /tˤ/, /dˤ/, /ðˤ/
- Notable features: root-and-pattern morphology
Arabic has sounds that don't exist in most European languages. IPA is how you learn to hear and produce them.
Japanese
- Vowel inventory: 5 short + 5 long vowels
- Key challenges: /ɾ/ (tap, not English r or l), pitch accent, moraic timing
- Notable features: syllables are generally CV (consonant + vowel) — simpler than English
Japanese pitch accent is phonemic in some dialects (meaning pitch distinguishes words). IPA with tone marks captures this in a way kana cannot. See Japanese pronunciation in IPA for the vowels, the R tap, and pitch accent.
Korean
- Vowel inventory: 7-10 vowels depending on dialect
- Key challenges: tense vs lax vs aspirated consonant triples (/p/, /p*/, /pʰ/)
- Notable features: hangul is already phonetic but IPA captures allophones (sound variations) that hangul hides
Mandarin Chinese
- Vowel inventory: 5-6 vowels + tones (4 main tones + neutral)
- Key challenges: retroflex consonants /tʂ/, /ʂ/, /ʐ/; the tones themselves; /y/ vowel
- Notable features: pinyin is a romanization but IPA is more precise about actual sounds
Mandarin without tones is gibberish. IPA with tone marks (e.g., /ma˥˥/, /ma˧˥/) is the only way to write Mandarin pronunciation unambiguously. Our guide to Mandarin tones in Pinyin and IPA breaks down all four, plus the neutral tone and tone sandhi.
Hindi
- Vowel inventory: 10+ vowels including nasalized
- Key challenges: retroflex stops /ʈ/, /ɖ/; aspirated vs unaspirated contrasts; schwa deletion
- Notable features: devanagari is phonetic but doesn't show schwa deletion rules
Vietnamese
- Vowel inventory: 9-11 vowels + 6 tones
- Key challenges: tone contours, implosive consonants, final stops
- Notable features: quốc ngữ script already encodes tones with diacritics
Vietnamese is tonal like Mandarin but with more tones. IPA with tone diacritics is the most precise way to learn pronunciation.
Why One System Handles Them All
IPA works across these 14 (and all other) languages because the underlying theory describes sounds by how they're physically made — where the tongue is, whether the vocal folds vibrate, whether air flows through the nose. Any human sound can be described with this system, which is why the same chart serves Mandarin tones and German umlauts equally well.
When you learn IPA for one language, you're not just learning a code for that language. You're building a skill that transfers to every other language you'll ever study.
Transcribing in Practice
Memorizing IPA charts for 14 languages is impossible. You don't need to. What you need is instant, in-context transcription while you read or study.
IPAtics transcribes every language above except Vietnamese with one hotkey, and it counts US and UK English separately, so that is 14 languages in all. Select any word in any supported language, press the shortcut, see the IPA transcription with interactive phoneme tooltips explaining each sound. For quick transcriptions without installing anything, use the IPA translator — or browse the per-language IPA converters by language.
IPA is not a destination. It's a tool that makes every other language you learn easier.
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