Hi everyone. In this video, you'll learn about the International Phonetic Alphabet for American
English consonants. The International Phonetic Alphabet, or the IPA as I'll refer to it in this
video, is a notation system that uses symbols to represent the sounds of spoken language. You
have probably seen it before in a dictionary, like in this entry from Cambridge Dictionary
for the word hello. The part that is circled in yellow is the IPA transcription. Each symbol of
the IPA corresponds to a distinct sound, so if you know the correct sound to symbol correspondence,
you should be able to pronounce any word you encounter. So for example the EE sound is
represented by this symbol in the IPA. Anytime you see this symbol transcribed in a word,
you would know to pronounce it as EE. So in the words he, tea, and me, the vowels are
pronounced as EE. The IPA is incredibly helpful when you're learning to speak a foreign language,
and especially for languages that are not phonetic like English. This means that in English, you
can't rely on the spelling of the word to let you know how to pronounce it. The letters don't always
match up to the same sound. Here's a great example of how English is not a phonetic language. Look at
these three words. They all contain the "ough" spelling, but all three words are pronounced
differently. If you had never seen these words before, you might not know how to pronounce them,
and you would need to rely on another system to help you with pronunciation. That's where the IPA
comes in handy. Here is the IPA transcription for each word. Listen to how I pronounce them.
Through. Cough. Bough. In through, the "ough" spelling has the OO sound. In cough, the "ough"
spelling makes the AH sound. And in bough, the "ough" spelling makes the OW sound. Native
speakers also have difficulty when they encounter unfamiliar words with pronunciation and spelling,
and what do they do when they have trouble? They go to a dictionary and the IPA. In this video, I'm
going to review the IPA symbols for the American English consonants. There will be a separate video
that reviews the vowels. Here is the IPA chart for the American English consonants. You'll notice
that the chart is divided into three areas: place, manner, and the bolded symbols that show voicing.
Place refers to the place in the mouth where the sound is made. So a sound that is a bilabial,
like P, is made with both of the lips. "Bi" equals both and "labial" equals lips. Watch yourself in
the mirror when you say the word please, and you'll notice that your lips come together when
you produce the P sound. Manner refers to the way the air is released for that sound. For example,
the P sound is called a stop. This means the air flow is stopped somewhere when the sound is made.
Since we know that the place of the P sound is with both lips, it is there that the air flow is
stopped, at the closure of the lips. And lastly, we have voicing. Voicing refers to the vibration
of your vocal cords. Voiced means the vocal cords are vibrating, and voiceless means the vocal cords
are not vibrating. To understand the concept of vocal cord vibration, try this quick exercise.
While you're breathing, put your hand on your throat and feel. What do you feel? You should feel
nothing. While you're breathing, your vocal cords are open and the air passes through unobstructed.
Now keeping your hand on your throat, say the word he and hold out the first sound. He. What do you
feel this time? Again, you should feel nothing with that first sound - just the air is passing
through. That's because the first sound in he is the voiceless H. Now using the same word,
he, say it again with your hand on your throat and hold out the last sound. He, he. What do
you feel this time? This time you should feel a vibration or movement of your vocal cords. When
a sound is made with the vocal cords vibrating, we call this a voiced sound. So in the word he ,there
is a voiceless H sound and a voiced EE sound. Now I'll review each sound and a sample word.
Thanks for watching, and let me know if you want some help with the American English consonants.
you