The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of symbols that represent speech sounds. The IPA describes a wide range of sounds that are contained in all the languages and accents from around the world. Many are familiar to us, but others are much less accessable, including clicks, trills and odd vowels and consonants. The full chart of phonetic symbols may be viewed here (.pdf file).

If you just visited that and returned, don't be frightened. Very few of these symbols/sounds (phonemes) are used in most American accents. You can view and print this helpful guide to the common American phonemes here (.pdf file). Note that some of the key words listed may not seem appropriate to you depending on your own pronunciation of those words; this is especially true with regards to the vowels, especially when those vowels are followed by the R-sound.

It is important to note that "sounds" and "letters" are not the same thing. For example, the F-sound may be written a number of ways, as in the words food, laugh, and phone. The letter f sometimes actually makes the V-sound, as in the word of. Each symbol in the IPA represents one sound.

The key point: The IPA is useful for learning an accent when what you see (the IPA) can be matched with what you hear both in the recordings and in your own speech. If you can begin to make distinctions intellectually, you can begin to do them in speaking.

If you would like to get deeper into studying and learning the International Phonetic Alphabet, click here for further information on a phonetics instructional text offered exclusively here on AccentHelp.