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With phonetic transcriptions, dictionaries tell you about the pronunciation of words. Phonetic transcription is necessary, because the spelling of a word does not tell you how you should pronounce it.

Phonetic transcriptions are usually written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), in which each English sound has a special symbol.

For example, the phonetic transcription of no is , and the transcription of do is . (In spelling, these words are similar. They both end in the letter o. But their phonetic transcriptions are different, because they are pronounced differently.)

Phonetic transcription is usually given in brackets, like this: //, //; or sometimes like this: [], [].

In a dictionary, it looks like this:

[Longman Active Study Dictionary of English]

(By the way, not all dictionaries give the pronunciations of words. If you are serious about learning English, you should buy a dictionary which has this information.)

The International Phonetic Alphabet

Take a look at our table with all the IPA symbols used in phonetic transcriptions in English dictionaries.

Word stress

When a word has many syllables, one of them is always pronounced more strongly. This is called word stress, and we say that the syllable is stressed. For example, in the word become, the stressed syllable is come. If the stressed syllable was be, become would be pronounced like this.

Dictionaries tell you which syllable is stressed. The most popular system is to put an apostrophe () before the stressed syllable in the phonetic transcription of the word. For example, the transcription for become is //.

If a word has only one syllable (for example: pen, house), the syllable is always stressed. Dictionaries usually do not put an apostrophe before the only syllable. So they don't write // — they simply write //.

Some dictionaries use other systems for showing word stress. For example, they may put an apostrophe after the stressed syllable, or they may underline the stressed syllable.

A demonstration

Have a look at our demonstration of the phonetic transcription system. You can read the transcriptions of some English words and listen to their pronunciations at the same time.

Phonemic transcription

The most common type of phonetic transcription is called phonemic transcription. This is the type that we discuss on Antimoon and that is used in dictionaries.

How does phonemic transcription work? Suppose we have two different English sounds. Should we give them separate symbols in transcriptions? In phonemic transcription, the answer is "yes" only if there is an English word where saying one sound instead of another changes the meaning.

• For example, saying "d" instead of "t" in the word bet changes the meaning (the word becomes bed), therefore we use separate symbols for "d" and "t" in phonemic transcriptions. We say that "t" and "d" are two different phonemes.
• The "flap t" (in this pronunciation of the word letter) and the regular "t" (in this one) are two very different sounds. However, there are no English words where saying the "flap t" instead of the regular "t" (or the other way around) changes the meaning. Therefore, in phonemic transcription, we use the same symbol for the "flap t" and the regular "t". (We say that the "flap t" and "regular t" are the same phoneme.)

(More examples in our article on phonemic transcription.)

A. C. Gimson's system

The most popular system of phonemic transcription was created by A. C. Gimson. It is used (with certain small changes) in nearly all dictionaries published in Britain. It is also used on Antimoon.

Gimson's system uses symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent phonemes. Of course, some phonemes can be pronounced in many ways (as explained above), and therefore could be written with many IPA symbols. For example, the "t" phoneme can be spoken like the "regular t" (IPA symbol ) or like the "flap t" (IPA symbol ). In such cases, A. C. Gimson simply chose one of the possible IPA symbols. Thus, the "t" phoneme is represented by the symbol.

In addition to Gimson's symbols, recent dictionaries use the following additional (non-phonemic) symbols in transcriptions: , , , , and .

Representing American English

Gimson's system was created with British pronunciation in mind. However, it can also be used to describe American pronunciation. There are two basic ways to do this:

• Separate transcriptions for British and American English, for example:

  dot	BrE //, AmE //
  farm	BrE //, AmE //
  go	BrE //, AmE //
  mother	BrE //, AmE // (or //)

  (This system is used e.g. in the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

• One transcription for both British and American English. This is done by using mostly British phoneme symbols plus the symbol.

  dot	//
  farm	//
  go	//
  mother	//

  In this system, transcriptions are shorter, but the reader must know that, in American English, changes to and changes to . This system is used e.g. in the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary and on Antimoon.

Some dictionaries use something in between these two extremes, giving separate American transcriptions for some words, but not for others. For example, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary gives separate AmE/BrE transcriptions, except when the word ends in .

"Narrow" phonetic transcription

The other type of phonetic transcription is much more detailed than phonemic transcription. In "narrow transcription", we use different symbols e.g. for:

• the "p" sound in pin and spin (the first is accompanied by more breathing)
• the "w" sound in wet and twice (the first is voiced, the second is not)
• the "u" sound in this pronunciation of flu and this one (the second has a longer "u" sound)
• the "flap t" and the regular "t" (the first is voiced and "flapped"; in narrow transcription it is usually denoted as )

"Narrow" transcription also uses symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. However, it uses more symbols than Gimson's phonemic transcription. "Narrow" transcription is mainly used by phoneticians and is not covered on Antimoon.