A while back I wrote a couple of posts (Learning to Pronounce English Words with the IPA and More About Learning Pronunciation) about how to use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) to learn English pronunciation. In one of the posts I recommended the University of Iowa online IPA chart for English students. However, the University of Iowa chart is not perfect. For one, it is intended for phonetics students and, as a result, it is not very easy to use and navigate without a solid understanding of the IPA and phonetics.

Learning how to produce sounds in a second language is challenging with sounds that aren’t in your first language.

When teaching, I get uncomfortable when a student asks for help with pronunciation. My usual solution is to make certain the student can identify difficult sounds before trying to pronounce them. Once the student learns to identify the sounds, I find it difficult to teach the student how to produce the sounds.

How does this help you lɜrn ɪŋglɪʃ?

The letters at the end of the above sentence (they read “learn English” by the way) are from the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA. The IPA is an alphabet that has a letter to represent every sound in every human language.

While it might take some time, learning the IPA gives you the ability to check the pronunciation of different words in the dictionary. This is a very valuable learning tool, particularly for people living in non-English-speaking countries.