The ASCII Phonetic Alphabet

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The ASCII Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet is very popular, but there is a big problem with this alphabet: the IPA symbols are difficult to type on computers. You can do it, but you need special fonts and special software. This is very inconvenient.

Therefore, when you want to write English sounds in computer documents, or in e-mail messages, it is better to use a phonetic alphabet which doesn’t use strange symbols like /ʒ/ or /æ/, but uses regular symbols like /3/ or /@/ instead. The name is ASCII Phonetic Alphabet, because the letters and symbols displayed by computers are called ASCII characters. (By the way, “ASCII” is pronounced /ˈæski/.)

Vowels

æ   @
ɑ:   a:
ɛ   e
ə   uh
i:  i:
ɪ   i
ʊ   u
u:  u:
ʌ   ^
ɚ   :r
eɪ  ei
aɪ  ai
aʊ  au
oɪ  oi
oʊ  ou
ɑɚ  ar
eɚ  er
iɚ  ir
oɚ  or
uɚ  ur
ɒ   British a
ɔ   British o

Consonants

b   b
d   d
ʤ   dZ
ð   TH
f   f
g   g
h   h
j   y
k   k
l   l
m   m
n   n
ŋ   ng
p   p
r   r
s   s
ʃ   S
t   t
tʃ  tS
θ   th
v   v
w   w
z   z
ʒ   Z
ʔ   ? (glottal stop)

Other Symbols

ˈ   ' (high stress)
ˌ    , (low stress)

£   BrE (indicates British pronunciation variant)

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