TeachingEnglish
Phonemic chart
Submitted by TE Editor on 15 December, 2010 - 11:17
This is the new British Council phonemic chart. Help your students hear the sounds of English by clicking on the symbols below. Click on the top right hand corner of each symbol to hear sample words including the sounds.
About the chart
- Pure vowels are arranged the same way as in the IPA chart: according to mouth shape (left to right, lips wide / round - top to bottom, jaw closed / open).
- Diphthongs are grouped in rows according to their second sound.
Try some pronunciation activities
- Telephone number pronunciation
- What's the pronunciation?
- Pronunciation of past simple verbs
- Phonemic symbols to download
- Using the phonemic chart for autonomous learning
Sounds Right iPad app
If you have an iPad, you can download and install a free copy of the British Council phonemic chart on it. Find out more on LearnEnglish.
Download the chart
You can download this chart to use on your PC - you'll need Adobe Flash Player to use it.
Copyright information: © British Council. This pronunciation chart is free for you to use and share for educational purposes. The chart should in no way be used or circulated for financial gain.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Phonemic chart to download | 2.69 MB |
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Comments
Greetings from Crete,
Teaching in Greece one often encounters a variety of linguistic backgrounds in one classroom (e.g. students who speak Dutch, Albanian, Russian, Chinese, French, German at home, yet are all attending a Greek public school or working in the local hospitality industry). These students face added challenges in mastering the sounds of English.
This type of application is a huge step - the last 15 years I have been relying on my theatrical voice training in order to demonstrate to students how to deliver a "neutral" or unaccented pronunciation, as well as how vowel variations can significantly alter pronunciation regionally. Though they find this highly entertaining - it would be great for them to have a practice tool they could use on their own as well!
Thanks to all for the great links - I intend to check them all out asap!
Thank you for providing a phonemic chart. It is quite useful to teach pronounciation to learners for whom English is L2 and have little exposure to the language. I am using this to teach adolescent learners. It works better than the old chart as this chart contains words
with regards
Satheesh
I want to download Phonemic chart
The above "phonemic chart" (not phonetic chart?) is so useless as to be a barrier to the use of phonetics for English. Dump it. An English based standard is what is needed. It's not 1888 any more for God's sake. Get rid of the special symbols and give us something we can type. Nobody uses IPA-like notation in USA.
Please abandon the IPA-like notation and build off of truespel phonetics to enable kids and adults to learn their phonemes as early as learning the letters of the alphabet. It can and should be that simple.
See http://justpaste.it/useit
TE Team
Hi
I'm afraid this chart isn't downloadable at the moment - I hope this might be possible at some point in the future though.
Sally
Sally's right - I've been talking about making it available to download for some time! So, from today you should be able to download the chart - follow the link above.
Rob
This is a good start, the old phonetic system had no structure. This system has some of the structure of the human mind when it comes to English language. Since 2003 I have been trying to work out a writen language pronounciation for my 'book th Synaesthetic Thesaurus' which will be in print 2012 all going well. I needed a phonetic guide to written word pronounciation for my book. The system I came up with uses a similar system to this but is a little more complicated, and letter colour also plays a part in how pitch/tone/etc are adjusted. What I have done is completely independant of your system, yet we seem to be both heading in the same direction. When my book is printed then you can compare it. For instance I take the letter 'H' to be a vowel, while your 'PBH' is my 'PBM'.
thank u very much for your efforts..
Greetings from Tunisia,
please how can I download the chart? I have a training session about phonetics soon ! I need it this week
Hi - you can download the chart by right clicking on the link above 'Phonemic chart to download'. (It's just below the chart.) Then select 'Save link as...'.
Hope you find it useful!
Rob
TeachingEnglish