Have you ever wondered how to properly pronounce a word in a foreign language,
but struggled because of the spelling?
Fear not, because today we're going to talk about IPA symbols and how they can give you pronunciation “superpowers”!
By the end of this video, you’ll know why the IPA can be helpful for any and every language learner,
and how to best use it to your advantage.
Plus, deciphering all those scary-looking symbols will be a lot less intimidating—that’s my promise to you!
HOW TO READ IPA SYMBOLS
Hi there, it’s Abbe, a teacher here at MosaLingua!
Today’s topic is the IPA.
Of course, I’m not talking about the beer called IPA, which stands for India Pale Ale,
BUT about the International Phonetic Alphabet!
It’s a system of phonetic notation developed in the 1800s based on the sounds of language.
Basically, it's a standard set of symbols that linguists use to transcribe the sounds of any language,
including ones that don’t use the Latin alphabet, like Japanese and Arabic.
Essentially, it takes words like these:
And turns them into this:
And it doesn’t just help linguists… The IPA can also help you, a language learner,
when you want to figure out how to pronounce a particular word—if you know how to use it.
You might say that you don’t need the IPA since there are ways to listen to the pronunciation of a word...
and you’d be right!
Knowing IPA notation isn’t a requirement by any means, but it is an extra resource
that can help you figure out how to pronounce your target language as accurately as possible,
especially those tricky sounds that don’t exist in your native language.
It’s also great for those of us who have a more visual learning style.
How about we go over some examples so I can show you how the IPA works?
Vowels in the IPA
Take the French vowel "u," which can be quite challenging for non-native speakers.
Let’s have a look at a couple of words:
As you can see, these words look similar,
and the U can sound similar if your ear isn’t trained to hear the difference,
but thanks to the IPA, we know that they have two distinct sounds:
"où," represented by a "u," and "u," represented by a "y."
Not only that, but the IPA can also tell you how to produce those sounds.
That’s where a vowel chart like this one comes in handy.
Each language has a different set of vowel phonemes, or sounds.
Compare this Spanish chart of all the Spanish vowel sounds…
to an American English one…
Picture this as a side view of your mouth.
These charts essentially tell you where and what shape your lips and tongue should be.
On the y axis, the up and down axis,
the close vowels at the top require your tongue to be near the roof of your mouth as in the sound "i."
Open vowels, which are near the bottom,
have your tongue resting on the bottom of your mouth, as in the "ɑ" sound—ɑ, ɑ.
Then on the x axis, you have front, center, and back,
which describe where the highest point of your tongue should be:
toward the front of your mouth, like for the "i" sound again, where it is nearly between your teeth,
or toward the back, like the "ʌ" sound—ʌ, ʌ.
Try out those sounds and pay attention to where your tongue is.
Sometimes you’ll see two letters in the same position, for instance: "i" and "y" in this French vowel chart.
They’re the same sound, but either rounded or unrounded.
So your lips should be rounded for the vowels on the right hand side of the dot,
and unrounded for those on the left hand side.
Some vowel charts you’ll find online also have audio for each sound, which is how I recommend studying them.
Consonants in the IPA
And then there are consonants.
The IPA accounts for pulmonic and non-pulmonic consonants,
essentially which are produced using airflow from your lungs, or not.
I’ll focus on pulmonic consonants today because these are the most common,
and are the ones used in English.
Non-pulmonic consonants include sounds like clicks, which are specific to some African languages.
For each language you’re learning, you’ll find a chart like this one.
Again, with a horizontal and vertical axis.
On the horizontal axis, you have place of articulation:
where in the vocal tract the sound is being produced.
And on the vertical axis, you have manner, or how it’s produced.
I won’t go into every category, but I’ll give a few examples.
People learning English often struggle with these two sounds (θ and ð).
As you can see from the chart, these are dental sounds, meaning that your tongue is touching your upper teeth.
It’s a fricative, meaning that you’re restricting airflow, or forcing air to flow through a narrow area.
And as with vowels, if there are two symbols in the same box, like these two,
they are the same sound but the right one is voiced, meaning your vocal cords should be vibrating,
and the left one is not.
So let’s try and pronounce those two consonants:
θ as in thing...
and ð as in though.
Now don’t worry, you don’t have to learn all these technical terms!
In most cases, listening to audio for each sound will help you learn it.
But, they can help you nail the sounds you’re having the most trouble with.
There are some non-letter symbols in the IPA, what are they?
IPA transcriptions can also give you some other information about a word besides the letter sounds themselves,
for instance, which syllables are stressed.
You’ll see a little vertical line that looks like an apostrophe right before the syllable that is stressed.
If there is a syllable with secondary stress,
which is emphasized but not quite as much as the syllable with primary stress,
you’ll see the same vertical line down at the bottom, right before that symbol.
Here’s an example:
This is a word with three syllables.
There’s the primary stress marker at the beginning of the word,
so the primary stress goes on that first symbol - daɪ.
The next syllable isn’t stressed - nə.
And then there’s the secondary stress marker down at the bottom before that third syllable: sɔr.
ˈdaɪnəˌsɔr
It’s not quite as strong as the first syllable, but definitely emphasized more than the second.
ˈdaɪnəˌsɔr... dinosaur
Sometimes there will also be a period between syllables to indicate how a word is broken up,
or something that looks like a colon, which tells you that the sound is long.
If you’re really really into linguistics and phonetics, you can learn a ton of fascinating information with the IPA.
But I’ve covered the very very basics so I’ll stop here
and let you dive into more detail on your own if you’re interested.
3 ways to incorporate the IPA into your study routine
Here are some tips on how to use and make the most of the IPA when learning a foreign language:
1) Practice, practice, practice!
To read IPA symbols most effectively, familiarize yourself with a chart of common IPA symbols in your target language,
and practice pronouncing all of the new sounds that don’t exist in your native language.
You can find charts like the ones I showed earlier on our blog.
2) Use online resources like dictionaries and IPA converters
to find transcriptions of words you want to learn, and practice reading and transcribing them yourself.
Note that not all dictionaries use the IPA, some use other transcription systems.
The Cambridge Dictionary is one that does use it,
and it has bilingual dictionaries with transcriptions in a few other languages, too.
3) Record yourself speaking in your target language
and compare your pronunciation to the IPA transcriptions.
Even better, say a sentence using a speech-to-text program, like the voice recognition feature on your phone.
Then copy the result, run it through an IPA converter, and see if it “understood you.”
In other words, does the IPA notation of what you said match the IPA notation of the sentence you were trying to say?
So there you have it!
Now you know the basics of the IPA and how to “decode” those symbols to improve your language skills.
Hopefully this video convinced you that it isn’t so scary after all,
and it can actually be a super useful tool!
Thanks for watching and happy learning!
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See you next time!