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    Interactive IPA chart for English

    Tap any of the 44 sounds to hear it and see how your mouth makes it.

    • 44 sounds
    • British and American audio
    • The mouth for every sound
    FrontCentreBack

    Consonants 24

    In a pair: voice off, then voice on

    • StopPlosive
    • Stop + hissAffricate
    • NoseNasal
    • HissFricative
    • GlideApproximant
    • SidesLateral approximant

    How to read the chart

    The vowel quadrilateral

    Picture your head facing left. The shape is the space your tongue moves in. Left to right is how far forward your tongue is; top to bottom is how far your jaw drops. So iː in see sits top-left: tongue high and forward, mouth nearly closed. ɑː in car sits bottom-right: tongue low and back, jaw open. Everything on the right-hand side is made with rounded lips.

    This is why the chart beats a word list. If you can say iː and ɪ is one small step below it, you already know what to change: drop your jaw very slightly and shorten it. That is the whole difference between sheep and ship.

    The consonant table

    Columns run from the lips to the throat: bilabial (both lips) on the left, glottal (vocal cords) on the right. Rows are how you obstruct the air: stopped completely for a plosive, squeezed for a fricative, redirected through the nose for a nasal.

    The pairs are the useful part. p and b share a cell because they are the same mouth position, with your vocal cords off and then on. Put a hand on your throat and say them: only the buzz changes. The same applies to f/v, s/z and θ/ð.

    Why neighbours matter

    Sounds that sit next to each other on the chart are the ones listeners confuse, because they are physically almost the same. That makes the chart a map of your risk: whichever pair your first language does not separate is a pair of adjacent cells here. Our minimal pairs are ranked by exactly that: how much confusing two neighbours actually damages understanding.

    The mouth diagrams

    Each sound's diagram is a side view of the head, facing left: the lips, the teeth, the ridge behind the top teeth, the hard and soft palate, and the tongue. The green dot marks where the sound is made, the dashed line shows where the air goes, and the waves at the throat mean the voice is on. Diphthongs and the sounds in church and judge move, because they are one sound that travels between two positions.

    Questions

    What is the IPA?
    The International Phonetic Alphabet is a system where one symbol always equals one sound. English spelling cannot do that: 'ough' has at least six pronunciations, so dictionaries and pronunciation guides use IPA symbols instead.
    Is this the full IPA chart?
    This is the English subset: the 44 phonemes of standard British English, which is what learners actually need. The full academic IPA covers every sound in every human language and runs to well over a hundred symbols plus diacritics.
    How do you read the vowel chart?
    The quadrilateral is a side-on map of your mouth, with your lips at the left. Left to right shows how far forward your tongue sits; top to bottom shows how open your jaw is. So /iː/ (top left, as in see) is made with the tongue high and forward, and /ɑː/ (bottom right, as in car) with the tongue low and back. Vowels on the right-hand side are made with rounded lips.
    How do you read the consonant chart?
    Columns are the place of articulation, moving from the lips on the left to the throat on the right. Rows are the manner: how the airflow is obstructed. Where two symbols share a cell, they are made identically apart from voicing, so /p/ and /b/, /f/ and /v/, /s/ and /z/ are each one mouth position with the vocal cords off, then on.
    What is the difference between a phonetic and a phonemic chart?
    A phonemic chart shows the sounds that change meaning in one language, written between slashes, which is what this chart does for English. A phonetic chart records the finer detail of how a sound is actually produced in a given moment, written between square brackets. Learners want the phonemic version.
    Do British and American English use different IPA symbols?
    Mostly the same, with a few systematic differences: British /əʊ/ is American /oʊ/ (go), British /ɒ/ becomes American /ɑː/ (hot), and American English pronounces r everywhere, so /ɜː/ becomes the r-coloured /ɝ/ (bird). Both are fully accepted in IELTS.
    Why do /ɜː/ and /ə/ sit in the same place on the chart?
    Because they are the same tongue position. The difference is length and stress: /ɜː/ is essentially a long, stressed schwa. That is why 'bird' and the second syllable of 'sofa' feel related when you say them slowly.
    How should I use this chart to improve?
    Do not memorise it top to bottom. Find the sounds that give you trouble, which your first language predicts well, tap to hear each one, open its guide for the mouth position, and drill it with feedback a few minutes a day. Neighbouring symbols on the chart are the ones you are most likely to confuse, so they are the pairs worth practising together.