English IPA (Phonemic) Chart

Tap or click on the sounds to hear their pronunciation and view the mouth positions. 

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FAQ

British English used in dictionaries has a standard set of 44 sounds, these are called phonemes.

For example, the word POT has 3 phonemes: /p/, /É’/ and /t/.

An allophone is a variation of a sound. For example, the phoneme /t/ is frequently pronounced [Ê”] in a word like WITNESS. So [Ê”] is an allophone of /t/. All sounds have allophones.

Numbers 45 [Ê”] and 46 [É«] on this chart are only allophones, they are not phonemic in English. 

A strictly phonemic transcription only uses the 44 sounds, so it doesn’t use allophones. A phonetic transcription uses the full International Phonetic Alphabet giving many more options for adding detail. 

So the word POT is /pÉ’t/ phonemically, but [pÊ°É’tË¢] is a possible phonetic transcription. 

For more information on this, see the full article Phonemic vs Phonetic Transcription. 

There is no fixed set of symbols so British English dictionaries do differ on some sounds. These mainly occur in the following places (see British English IPA Variations for full explanation):

 

The accent on the recordings is a GB (General British) also known as SSB (Standard Southern British) model. For more information on these terms and the accents, see this article.