IPA tutorial for literally just me

28 Oct, 2026

who speaks American English; Mandarin Chinese, with a Taiwanese accent, probably; and Spanish (one semester of middle school)

Notation: I'll write IPA unadorned, example English words or "intuitive" fragments in quotes, and X-SAMPA as code. Example: the IPA ə is the "a" in "about" and has X-SAMPA @.

Vowels

The bad news is that none of the lowercase vowels (a e i o u) are intuitive for an English speaker; the good news is that all of them are intuitive for a Spanish speaker.

The "English 101" sounds associated with the vowels are:

• "a" ("bat") = æ = {
• "e" ("bet") = ɛ = E
• "i" ("bit") = ɪ = I
• "o" ("bot") = ɑ = A (Brits may have ɒ = Q instead)
• "u" ("but") = ʌ = V

The "long vowels":

• "long A" ("bait") = eɪ = eI
• "long E" ("beet") = i = i
• "long I" ("bite") = aɪ = aI
• "long O" ("boat") = oʊ = oU
• "long U" (but without the "y" part) ("boot") = u = u

Other vowels:

• "bought" = ɔ = O (merged with ɑ = A in the "cot-caught" merger)
• "book" = ʊ = U
• schwa, "a" in "about" = ə = @
• "ow" ("bout") = aʊ = aU
• "oy" ("boy") = ɔɪ = OI

"Syllabic consonants", where there kind of isn't a vowel, could plausibly have a preceding ə, e.g. əl @l; or could be written with a line below, e.g. l̩ = l=. So we might have "apple" = æpəl = {p@l, or æpl̩ = {pl=. əl, əm, and ən are common.

According to Wikipedia, R-colored vowels occur in <1% of languages, but English and Mandarin Chinese are two of them. So there are vowels such as:

• "er" in "butter" = ɚ = @`
• "ir" in "bird" = ɝ = 3`

However you can also just write the vowel followed by ɹ = r\, or even the vowel followed by r directly.

Consonants

Fortunately easier. These lowercase consonants all have the sound I'd expect: bdfghklmnpstvwz. The lowercase consonants that are not intuitive are cjqrxy. I wouldn't be tempted to reach for c, q, or x, so I just need to learn the other three:

• "j" is dʒ = dZ. (j is "y", see below.)
• "r" is ɹ = r\. (r is rolled, Spanish "rr"; it's not in English.)
• "y" is j. (y is a vowel, German "ü" or Mandarin "ㄩ" (魚).)

The uppercase consonants that are relevant are:

• "ng" in "sing" = ŋ = N
• "th" in "this" = ð = D (voiced)
• "th" in "think" = θ = T (voiceless)
• "sh" = ʃ = S; "ch" = tʃ = tS
• "measure" = ʒ = Z; "j" = dʒ = dZ

You can remember the uppercase consonants with the mnemonic "deez nuts", as long as you are okay excluding V (an uppercase consonant that represents a vowel).

ʔ = ? is the glottal stop, as seen in the middle of "uh-oh".

Primary stress is written by preceding the syllable with ˈ ("). Secondary stress is written by preceding the syllable with ˌ (%).

Less-essential things and bonuses

• ʰ = _h is aspiration, the puff of air after the p in "pin" (pʰɪn) but not in "spin" (spɪn).
• ɾ = 4 is Spanish (tapped) "r", but also appears in e.g. "metal"/"medal" when not hyperarticulated.
• ɫ = 5 is the "dark L", which sounds more hollow. American English L's are pretty dark everywhere but more so at the ends of syllables. "leaf" lif vs. "feel" fiɫ.
• ɨ = 1 is a weak vowel, often merged with ə but perhaps in the direction of ɪ from there, as in the second vowel of "roses".
• Longer vowels (in the technical linguistics sense of literally being pronounced for longer, not the fun informal phonics 101 sense above) can be written with a following ː (X-SAMPA :). Contrast "bit" bɪt with "bid" bɪːd. In American English, this often isn't written because there aren't any words that are only distinguished from each other by the length of their vowels (i.e. vowel length "isn't phonemic"), but there are other accents where it does matter.
• x = x is Spanish "j".
• ɤ = 7 is Mandarin "ㄜ" (鵝).
• ɲ = J is Spanish "ñ".
• q = q is Arabic "q". Kind of similar to "k". This doesn't help me.
• c = c is also similar to "k". Some Taiwanese Hokkien speakers might sometimes make this sound instead of "k", it's unclear. I spent at least 15 minutes trying to create a better explanation and failed.