IPA transcription practice

Here are some words and sentences to practise transcribing in IPA, with relatively broad transcriptions and commentary below the cut. For more teaching-yourself-IPA resources, try here or here

a. What do you want to do about it?

b. inconceivable 

c. The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.

d. Phonetics is a pleasure. 

e. Every child should have a toy.

Answers

Note: there is no capitalization or punctuation in IPA! Sometimes capitals and/or punctuation marks stand for specific sounds, but they never stand for the same things that capitals or punctuation stand for in regular orthography. If you want to represent the intonational information that punctuation sometimes indicates, you can use pitch markers, although I will not do so here. People also often transcribe stress, although I’m only doing so for “inconceivable” because the other words are very short so stress isn’t very meaningful for them. It also is technically correct to write IPA without spaces between words, since words are produced in an unbroken stream, but for ease of readability people normally do mark spaces (and sometimes even morpheme boundaries, with hyphens). 

a. wʌt du ju wɑn tə du əbawt ɪt

A few options here. The most precise version would be something like /wʌt du ju wɑnt tu du əbawt ɪt/, but most people are unlikely to actually say it that way in natural-paced speech, so /wʌt du ju wɑn tə du əbawt ɪt/ is a reasonable compromise. Even more rapidly, you might end up with /wʌt dju wɑn tə du əbawt ɪt/ or even /wʌʧə wɑnə du əbawt ɪt/. 

The first vowel in “about” is schwa, not /a/ or /ʌ/, because it is unstressed. The second vowel (actually diphthong) is /ʌw/ if you have Canadian Raising. Some conventions also write these diphthongs as /aʊ/ or /ʌʊ/. A few people may devoice the /w/ in “what” to get /ʍ/ but this pronunciation is growing less common. Note that /j/ in IPA stands for a palatal glide, which English speakers think of as a “y” sound, and that /y/ in IPA stands for a front high rounded vowel, which is not found in English but is the sound in French “tu” or German “über”. 

b. ˌɪŋkənˈsivəbl 

The nasal is velar (i.e., /ŋ/ not /n/) before a velar stop /k/. /c/ in IPA is a palatal stop, which is not found in English, so all instances of “c” in English orthography can be written /k/, /s/, /ʧ/ etc. The schwa before /b/ could also be /ɪ/ although it is again probably not /a/ or /ʌ/ unless you’re hperarticulating. The /l/ at the end is syllabic, which could also be written with the syllabic diacritic as /l̩/ (a short line under the symbol). Or, if you don’t consider it syllabic, you could write it as /əl/. 

There are several ways of determining stress. One way is to “call” a word like you would call a person’s or dog’s name: the syllable that gets a high pitch is the primary stressed one. Another way is to pronounce the word several times, each time putting really heavy stress on a different syllable (INconceivable, inCONcivable, inconCEIvable, inconceiVAble, inconceivaBLE): the one that sounds the least weird is the one where you’ve emphasized the primary stressed syllable, and the one that sounds slightly weirder but still not as terrible as the others is the one where you’ve emphasized the secondary stressed syllable.

c. ðə kwɪk brawn fɑks ʤʌmps owvɚ ə lejzi dɑg

The “th” in “the” is voiced /ð/ not voiceless /θ/. /q/ in IPA is a uvular stop, which is also not found in English, so all instances of “q” in English orthography can be written with /k/ or possibly other symbols if they make a different sound. Again, there is no /c/ in English. The symbol /x/ in IPA represents a velar fricative, so all instances of “x” in English orthography can be written /ks/, /gz/, /z/, etc. /ɚ/ is a rhotacized schwa and makes the “er” sound as in “singer”: you can also write this sound as a syllabic r (i.e. /r̩/ or /ɹ̩/) or schwa r (/ər/ or /əɹ/). Which r-symbol you use depends on your priorities: /ɹ/ or /ɻ/ are more technically accurate, but /r/ is sometimes used for English-only transcription despite the fact that it really indicates a trill because it’s easier to type. 

The /ow/ and /ej/ could have been written /oʊ/ and /eɪ/ or even /o/ and /e/ if you’re not representing the more subtle English diphthongs. If you’re representing devoiced sonorants, the /w/ after the /k/ would be devoiced: /kw̥/. 

d. fənɛtɪks ɪz ə plɛʒɚ

Orthographic “ph” here makes a /f/ sound, not a p+h sound as in “top hat”.  The sound /ʒ/ has notoriously inconsistent spellings in English so watch out for it. Orthographic “cs” here makes a “ks” sound. See note above about /ɚ/. If you’re representing flapping, the /t/ in /fənɛtɪks/ would be a tap/flap /fənɛɾɪks/. If you’re representing devoiced sonorants, the /l/ in /plɛʒɚ/ would be devoiced /pl̥/.

e. ɛvri ʧajld ʃʊd hæv ə tɔj

You probably don’t say “every” with three syllables unless you’re hyperarticulating, which is a common mistake of beginning transcribers. The diphthong /aj/ could also be written /aɪ/: it cannot be subject to Canadian Raising (which would produce /ʌj/ or /ʌɪ/) because it is before a voiced segment. Also watch out for /ʊ/, which doesn’t have a very consistent spelling in English (generally “oo” or “ou” but these combinations can also stand for /u/ or /aw/). The diphthong /ɔj/ could also be written /ɔɪ/ or if you’re completely ignoring this vowel you might even see /oj/ or /oɪ/. If you’re representing aspiration, the /t/ in /tɔj/ would be aspirated: /tʰɔj/. 

Have I missed anything? Please do let me know! Precise transcription is notoriously prone to typos since you can’t exactly spellcheck it. There may be other phonetic processes (e.g. vowel nasalization or lengthening) that you might want to transcribe sometimes but I haven’t indicated here. 

Update: check out the notes below for other people’s transcriptions, since everyone’s accent is going to be slightly different, there are more options than the ones I’ve mentioned, especially when it comes to rapid speech. One thing that I didn’t mention is the caught-cot merger: I pronounce these words the same, but if you don’t, Americans will probably have /ɔ/ in “dog” and Brits probably /ɒ/ in both “fox” and “dog”, at least according to the dictionaries I checked. A few people have also mentioned various vowels in “want”, such as /ɒ/ and /ʌ/: I definitely have /ɑ/ but I suppose there must be variation here too. 

Don't miss out on any interesting linguistics! Get my monthly newsletter in your inbox.



Notes

  1. mortecinas reblogged this from mortecinas-study-reference
  2. wannabelangbr reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  3. casualpurplesky-blog reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  4. mortecinas-study-reference reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  5. phopho16 reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  6. nasalplosion-blog reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  7. hotairballoongirl reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  8. almfox reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  9. toosexyforcontacts reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  10. sshepardcommander reblogged this from allthingslinguistic
  11. goodplace-janet reblogged this from guineapigwithaflamethrower
  12. allthingslinguistic posted this