SpeakMetry
Start free

Pronunciation · Tool

English to IPA translator

In short

Paste English text and get its IPA phonetic transcription, in British or American English, aligned word by word so you can check a single word without re-reading the line. Backed by a 126,000-word dictionary rather than guessed from spelling. Free, no account, no daily limit.
44/2000
Try:

What this gets right, and what it does not

A transcription tool is only worth using if you know where to trust it, so here is the honest version.

American: dictionary-accurate

Every American transcription comes from the Carnegie Mellon Pronouncing Dictionary, a hand-built lexicon of over 126,000 words. It is not derived from spelling, which is why it handles colonel, choir and Worcestershirecorrectly where a rules-based converter cannot.

British: a close approximation

The source is American, so the British column is converted by rule. The systematic changes are reliable: dropping /r/ except before a vowel, turning oʊ into əʊ, and rebuilding the centring diphthongs in here, square and tour.

Two things cannot be recovered from an American source. The dictionary writes one vowel for hot and father, which differ in British English, and one for cat and bath, which also differ. We default to the more frequent option, so everyday words are right and a handful of others are not. Words shown in colour have been hand-checked by us and are exact.

Unknown words stay unknown

A word not in the dictionary gets a question mark. Guessing from spelling would produce confident, plausible, frequently wrong output — exactly the failure this tool exists to avoid.

Reading the output

Three conventions cause most of the confusion.

  • The stress mark comes first. In /kəmˈpjuːtə/ the mark sits before the syllable it stresses, not on its vowel. A single-syllable word has no mark because there is nothing to contrast.
  • Slashes mean phonemic. This is the sound system, not one recorded utterance. A narrow phonetic transcription would use square brackets and mark aspiration, flapping and glottal stops.
  • ː is not a colon and ˈ is not an apostrophe. They are their own characters. If you are storing transcriptions, see the Unicode reference.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is this English to IPA translator?
The American transcriptions come from the Carnegie Mellon Pronouncing Dictionary, a hand-built lexicon of over 126,000 words, so they are as accurate as a dictionary rather than guessed from spelling. The British column is converted from the same source by rule and is a close approximation; words we have hand-checked ourselves are marked in colour and are exact.
Why is the British transcription an approximation?
Because the source dictionary is American, and two English vowel splits cannot be recovered from it. It writes one symbol for the vowel of 'hot' and the vowel of 'father', which are different in British English, and one for 'cat' and 'bath', which are also different. We apply the systematic rules that DO work — dropping /r/ where British English does, and converting /oʊ/ to /əʊ/ — and state the rest rather than hiding it.
Why does it show a question mark for some words?
Because that word is not in the dictionary — usually a proper name, a very new word, or a typo. We deliberately do not guess: a rule-based fallback would produce confident, plausible and often wrong transcriptions, which is worse than an honest gap on a tool whose only job is to be right.
Is this phonemic or phonetic transcription?
Phonemic — the sound system rather than one particular utterance, which is why it belongs between slashes. It does not mark aspiration, flapping, glottal stops or the other detail a narrow phonetic transcription in square brackets would show.
Where should the stress mark go?
Before the stressed syllable, not on its vowel. This tool places it there automatically, using the onset of the syllable rather than simply the nearest consonant, so 'computer' comes out as /kəmˈpjuːtə/ and not /kəˈmpjuːtə/.
Is there a limit on how much text I can convert?
One paragraph at a time — 2,000 characters or 400 words. There is no daily cap and no account needed: this is a dictionary lookup rather than an AI call, so it costs us nothing to run and we do not meter it.

Keep exploring

Next step

A transcription tells you the target. It cannot tell you if you hit it.

SpeakMetry listens to you say the word and scores the individual sounds, the stress and the rhythm — the difference between knowing the IPA and producing it. Free to start.

Try the Pronunciation Coach

American pronunciations derived from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, copyright 1993–2015 Carnegie Mellon University, used under its BSD-style licence.