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Phonemic chart for English teachers

Explore the phonemic chart and discover teaching tools and activities to help your English language learners improve their pronunciation.

Two female Asian students in a classroom looking at a tablet showing the phonemic chart
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About the phonemic chart

The phonemic chart is a useful tool to help your learners become more familiar with the phonemes or sounds of English. It consists of:

  • 12 vowel sounds (7 short vowels and 5 long vowels)
  • 6 dipthongs (combinations of two vowel sounds)
  • 24 consonants (voiced and unvoiced)

Download the phonemic chart

Download the chart and display it in your class so that your learners can refer to it.

Download the phonemic chart

Download the phonemic symbols

Support your pronunciation activities with our A4 size downloadable pronunciation posters – one for each of the 44 phonemic symbols.

Download the phonemic symbol posters

These phonemes are part of the phonemic script that is used to describe the sounds of many languages. They have been established by the International Phonetic Association (IPA).  

Using the phonemic chart in the classroom

You can use the phonemic chart whenever you are doing some pronunciation practice in your classes. It is an excellent resource for working on new sounds that may not exist in your learners' L1 or highlighting the difference between similar sounds.   

You don't have to present the chart all at once. A 'little and often' approach is often the most beneficial when working on pronunciation. By introducing the symbols and sounds gradually, you can help learners both see and hear how English sounds work, while also drawing their attention to the physical processes involved in producing them.    

Try out some of these TeachingEnglish ideas and activities for practising pronunciation:  

Using the phonemic chart autonomously 

If learners become familiar with the phonemic chart and the sounds of English, they can also work autonomously on pronunciation.  Encourage learners to use phonemic script to record the pronunciation of new words they meet. Point out that dictionary definitions also include phonemic script that can help them resolve doubts over pronunciation. 

You can also set homework related to pronunciation. For example, ask them to write five new words from the class in phonemic script for homework, to be used to test their classmates.  

Similarly, if you want to focus on a sound which is problematic for your learners, ask them to find five words with that sound and write them in phonemic script. With a little training, your learners could prepare their own 'minimal pairs', for example with the sounds /i/ and /i:/. Depending on their level, they might come up with something like this: 

/I/  /i:/
sit  seat
hit  heat
will  wheel
mill  meal
bin  been
ship  sheep

 

They can use these to test their classmates' ability to discriminate between these sounds, as well as their own pronunciation, in the next class. They simply show the two lists of words to a partner, and say one of the words. The partner responds 'left' or 'right'. For example, in the list above, if student A says 'seat', student B will (hopefully) respond 'right'. 

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Comments

Hi Lenisme

Thanks for your message. We have updated this chart to include sounds that were missing. The /i:/ sound can be written with a capital or small i (this is just a matter of style/design).

Hope that helps,

Cath

Teachingenglish team

Submitted by profhasabo on Fri, 08/25/2023 - 08:29

The best way is to have the phonemic chart as a poster in the office and the classroom for continuous revision.

Submitted by ctquang123 on Sat, 08/19/2023 - 08:41

I wonder why we do not have an /ʊə/ in this chart?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 08/20/2023 - 17:41

Hi  and you'll find it in the App linked to the course: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.britishcouncil.phonemicchart&hl=en_GB&gl=US

Are you able to access that?

Best regards,

Anne

TeachingEnglish team

 

Submitted by jennypr on Tue, 10/03/2023 - 06:22

Hi and help please

I have download the app and I don’t see the
/ɛ/ sound as in
Bread /brɛd/
Head /hɛd/

Can you help me please. And with urgency please as i am teaching to my students and wouldn’t like to make mistakes.

Thank you very much in advance

Submitted by Cath McLellan on Wed, 10/04/2023 - 09:22

Hi jennypr

If you are referring to the vowel sound in "Bread" and "head" then it appears in the chart as /e/. You can find it in the vowel section under /i:/

Hope that helps!

Cath
TeachingEnglish team

Submitted by gachamorrom on Thu, 09/28/2023 - 10:18

Hello, it is true, in the downloadable image it is not updated with the diphthong "ʊə". Please update it. Thank you in advance for all the effort you have put in.

Submitted by jandira moreira on Mon, 03/28/2022 - 15:12

The app was finished in 2020. What are the option to open the file? FLASH PLAYER

Submitted by Paul Braddock on Fri, 04/08/2022 - 14:01

Hi, 

we no longer have the Flash files available. The best way to access the interactive phonemic chart is to download the Sounds Right App. You can find the link to this on the page.

Thanks

Paul

Submitted by Cath McLellan on Tue, 05/26/2020 - 09:32

Hi there

The chart is currently only available as an EXE file

Apologies for the inconvenience,

Cath
TE Team

Submitted by Sadaf Fatima on Wed, 02/13/2019 - 12:23

Hi the gven phonemic chart which i have just downloaded...is quite a good technological invention to learn and teach sounds of English language. However, i will very humbly point out that it is missing one diphthong--combination of "oo" and "schwa" sound as in words "poor" and "dual"...which will also make it a total of 20 vowel phoneme sounds in English language. please add it too...a humble invocation. best regards Sadaf Fatima

Submitted by MarkAuchincloss on Mon, 07/02/2018 - 08:38

I can't download it as I use a Google Chromebook. Please update software as most students/teachers have access to Chromebook !!

Submitted by Cath McLellan on Tue, 07/03/2018 - 14:15

Hello Thanks for your comment - I will pass it on to the technical team. Best wishes, Cath TE Team

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 01/13/2018 - 08:16

The most useless ever,,, this is not helpful. Many are hypocrite that this is helpful in pronunciation. second language are doing a mimic sounds.. like an infant do. This kind of chart had created for additional burden of usless language sounds. In reality this is USESLESS. If you understand the mimic sounds you know what I mean.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 12/07/2017 - 21:49

Thank you very much British Council Am so happy after a very long search I finally found a site like this where I can learn phonemes. Sorry to bore you with this...I have a passion for phonemes I want to learn it and be able to pronounce ever single English word correctly like the first English speakers so please my able British Council I want to ask if there is a way I can download this phenomic chart on my Android phone so that I can be able to learn phonemes on the go anywhere I am. Pleeeeeeeeeeease help me I really need it on my phone. the one here in this page: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/TEphonemic.zip is only compatible with PC. Thank you in anticipation of your favourable response

Submitted by Cath McLellan on Tue, 12/12/2017 - 15:44

Thanks for your comment, and we are glad you find the chart useful. Unfortunately, as you say, the zipfile is only compatible with PC, but you could download the British Council Sounds Right app, which you can find here https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/apps/sounds-right I hope that helps, Cheers, Cath TE Team

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 01:16

I'm curious why this chart doesn't have a diphthong for /ʊə/ The one Adrian Underhill uses on the seminar videos does. I became aware of his videos through the British Council, so I am wondering why there is a difference there. Is it not really regarded as a true diphthong? For example, in "pure" /'pjʊə/ is this seen as two separate syllables? Anyway, many other phonemic charts do have /ʊə/ so I was a but confused by the difference.

Hi AnthonyESL Thanks for your comment - you are right, that although there has been some disagreement about diphthongs, the /ʊə/ sound is missing here - we have been working on updating the chart here for some time - apologies for the inconvenience. Our LearnEnglish App (which you can download for free - https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/apps/sounds-right ) does include the sound, and is a great resource for students to use. Hope that helps, Cath TE Team

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 07/26/2016 - 22:33

Hello, I'm wondering why the phonemic chart doesn't have this diphthong? /ʊə/ Thanks Jeanette

Hi Jeanette, Thanks for the comment - there has been lots of discussion about the 'missing diphthong' on this page - our development team is working on updating the chart, but it is taking longer than expected - we hope to have it updated as some time in the near future. Thanks, Cath

Submitted by Derek Spafford on Mon, 02/15/2016 - 12:52

Hi Richard There's been some debate regarding the missing dipthong which you can add to by looking at the previous comments.

Submitted by Sk.Ismail on Sun, 12/13/2015 - 17:11

Hello everyone, My sincere wishes to you all. This phonetic transcription chart is very helpful for me not only for teaching children but also teaching pronunciation to adults. Thank you very much

Submitted by sam7702000 on Mon, 04/06/2015 - 09:50

hi i have a doubt on the word TREATY- /ˈtriː.ti/, we have a short vowel sound i in the end, but in the chart it is a long vowel i:, why in the symbols ɪ is not used and the script is not /ˈtriː.t ɪ/, please help, thanks

Submitted by sam7702000 on Mon, 12/22/2014 - 11:29

hi my query when we use the script for i sound the shot one, we have two symbols the 'i' and ' ɪ ' both sound the same, but in application on the word,committee /kəˈmɪt.i/ , both the symbols are used, ie after m and t., is there any rule to use specific symbols, other examples why in the word kit- we use /kɪt/, and for pony we use /ˈpəʊ.ni/

Submitted by stephen jeyaraj k on Wed, 02/19/2014 - 12:40

It is really very helpful to teach the children especially to practice the beginners ot learning the language English! superb!

Submitted by sam7702000 on Fri, 12/27/2013 - 14:14

the chart is user friendly, thank you

Submitted by chrislann on Wed, 02/20/2013 - 11:10

Maybe we could have a Mac-compatible download option? .exe files do not compute!

Submitted by Sally Trowbridge (not verified) on Wed, 03/06/2013 - 11:07

A download option for Mac users is something that we might be able to offer in the future. Thanks for your suggestion Chrislann!
Sally

Submitted by Mostafa Thabet on Thu, 02/07/2013 - 11:12

Very helpful.

Submitted by jvl narasimha rao on Mon, 03/26/2012 - 16:34

This is really incredible.This chart can be useful both for teachers of English and students.I really thank the TE Editor for publishing and making it accessible to learners

Submitted by M. Junaidi Marzuki on Fri, 07/08/2011 - 06:38

The phonemic chart was very useful. but personally, i want to download it in the form of mp3 as i did in cambridge dictionary. i download a single word and play it in winamp without conneting to internet. i have tried to download the individulal sound when i play it but my internet downloader cannot catch the sound so i cannot download it as i did in cambridge dictionary. could you give advice how to download it?

Submitted by Rob Lewis (not verified) on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 10:12

Hi there

I'm afraid this chart isn't downloadable right now - I hope it will be more widely accessible in future though.

Best wishes

Rob

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 04/12/2011 - 12:13

Hi,

I think of it as English -without any regional accents.  It should be understood anywhere English is spoken.

Cheers

Phil

Submitted by Rob Lewis (not verified) on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 10:28

Hi everyone

Thanks again for your contribution to the discussion here. We've just relaunched the chart with the /ʊə/ sound which was previously missing. This is available as an iPad app and will also be updated here soon.

Rob

Submitted by Rob Lewis (not verified) on Thu, 03/03/2011 - 11:19

Thanks Chiew and Phil for your links, and Lukie and Emad - glad you've found it useful!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/02/2011 - 11:35

Hi,

Yes, Photransedit is great.... but I've found a discrepancy:

Example: noise

It's /ˌnɔɪz / in American translation, but /noiz/ in RP/British.

It's the same for all uses of ˌ/ɔɪ/, offline and online.

I've emailed them about it.

Phil

Hi Darwin,

No doubt a typo - happens to the best of us. After all, we don't use /oi/, do we? I won't be surprised if there are other errors, too, but if we help them improve their database, it'll be good for all of us.

Regards,

Chiew

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 02/24/2011 - 11:01

Hi,

"PhoTransEdit" is a good phonetics application, available at http://www.photransedit.com/

Not perfect British English - but you can download it and try.

Cheers

Phil

Submitted by Rob Lewis (not verified) on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 15:39

Sorry to those of you who have had problems on Chrome - I've also found it frustrating as it works sometimes and not others. It's bewildering but we'll do what we can to improve it.

Thanks for further comments on the diphthong, and interesting to read the OED's key to pronunciation. As much as anything it made me think of a question which comes back time and again: which English (and which sounds) should we teach?

Submitted by acLiLtocLiMB on Wed, 01/05/2011 - 19:54

I'm afraid the chart doesn't work very well on Google Chrome. I refer to the sounds. It's hard to elaborate because it isn't something constant. Due to Murphy's Law, right now, when I wanted to determine the exact problem, it works fine. Sometimes, it works once, then stops working altogether. Sounds like I'm rambling on, don't I?

Submitted by abdul_k on Tue, 12/28/2010 - 19:19

We used to talk about 44 sounds including the ʊə (as in cure). How can we take it in to account?

Thanks everyone for your comments so far.

Abrar Tahir - I'm afraid the chart isn't available for download at the moment.

Rob

Submitted by matbury on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 00:27

Hi, I've just joined and this is my first post here. It's great to have a place to share ideas with like minded people! :)

I agree with the comments above, some of the unvoiced consonants are voiced here. I also think that the dipthong pronunciation is a little over-emphatic and unrealistic. These are things that are easy to remedy and the layout's attractive. I'm not sure what the "try", "think", "talk" and "transform" icons are meant to represent or what they do. I was redirected to an unrelated web page.

I've written a phonetic/phonemic chart of my own that runs in Moodle, the leading open source learning management system used by the UK's OU and other universities, colleges and schools around the world. I'd be interested in hearing your feedback. I wrote a blog article about it here: http://matbury.com/wordpress/2010/05/12/dynamic-phonetic-chart-application/ There's a link to the demo from there.

All the best,

Matt

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