Tools/English to IPA
English to IPA converter
Convert English text to IPA — General American and Received Pronunciation. See the IPA, hear the word, and turn it into review-ready flashcards — without leaving what you are reading.
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English in IPA
9 worked examples, each chosen for a sound the spelling hides.
US — General American
UK — Received Pronunciation
ough spelt, /uː/ said
US — the same four letters, a diphthong
UK — and again, a long vowel
and again, this time /ʌf/
the s is silent
US — spelt with l, said with r
US — two schwas and a secondary stress
English sounds to know
The symbols that come up most often in English transcription, and what each one actually asks your mouth to do.
| Letter | Example | IPA | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| th | think | /θ/ | Tongue tip lightly between the teeth, no voice. Not /s/ and not /t/ — the two substitutions that mark a non-native accent fastest. |
| th | this | /ð/ | The same tongue position as /θ/ but voiced. English writes both with the same two letters, so only a transcription tells them apart. |
| a, e, o, u (unstressed) | about | /ə/ | Schwa — the most common vowel in English speech. Almost any unstressed vowel collapses into it, whatever the spelling says. |
| i | ship | /ɪ/ | Short, lax, and lower than the vowel in sheep. Languages with a single /i/ merge the pair, which is why ship and sheep sound identical to many learners. |
| ee, ea, ie | sheep | /iː/ | Long and tense. The contrast with /ɪ/ is one of the highest-value pairs to drill in English. |
| r | red | /ɹ/ | A post-alveolar approximant: the tongue never touches the roof of the mouth. Unrelated to the Spanish tap or the French uvular r. |
| ng | sing | /ŋ/ | One sound, not n followed by g. In most accents no /ɡ/ is pronounced at the end of sing. |
| u, o | cup | /ʌ/ | An open-mid back unrounded vowel written with u, o, ou and oo. The spelling gives no clue which words have it. |
| er, ir, ur | bird | /ɝ/ | The r-coloured vowel of General American. RP has a plain long /ɜː/ with no r at all. |
| o, oa, ow | go | /oʊ/ | A diphthong in both dialects, but a different one: /oʊ/ in General American and /əʊ/ in Received Pronunciation. |
How English writing maps to sound
English uses the Latin alphabet with 26 letters for roughly 44 phonemes, so a single letter routinely stands for several sounds and a single sound is written several ways. Nothing in the spelling marks stress either, even though stress decides which vowels reduce to schwa. IPA is the only notation that fixes all three at once.
Which English do these transcriptions show?
IPAtics transcribes English as General American (US) or Received Pronunciation (UK); pick the dialect in settings. The two differ most in r-colouring — RP drops the r in car and bird, GA keeps it — and in the vowels of lot, bath and goat. Neither is more correct; be consistent with the one you are learning.
Why guess English pronunciation?
English spelling froze centuries before its pronunciation did, so the letters on the page are an unreliable guide to the sounds. The same letters give different sounds, silent letters are everywhere, and the unstressed vowel (schwa) hides in plain sight. A transcription removes the guesswork.
From English text to IPA in seconds
Select the text
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Frequently asked questions
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