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English short vowels are all transcribed by a single letter in the IPA.
Because English short vowels ''a e i o u'' are closer to the Classical pronunciation (still found in Spanish and Italian) than the long vowels are, it is the short vowels which are transcribed with IPA letters which resemble the English letters ''a e i o u.'' However, they are modified to show that they aren't exactly the Classical sounds. For the ''a'' sound of ''cat,'' the [[Old English]] letter ''[[æ]]'' was resurrected: {{IPA|/kæt/}}. The ''e i u'' sounds of ''pet, pit, put'' (not ''putt'') were originally written as capital letters, and that is sometimes still done with manual typewriters. However, small caps looked better, so they were for a time written {{sc|e i u}}. These took more cursive forms over time, and are today written {{IPA|/ɛ ɪ ʊ/}}: ''pet'' {{IPA|/pɛt/}}, ''pit'' {{IPA|/pɪt/}}, ''put'' {{IPA|/pʊt/}}. The latter, of course, is also the short ''oo'' sound of ''good'' {{IPA|/ɡʊd/}}. The ''u'' vowel of ''putt'' or ''cut'', is written as an upturned letter ''v'', e.g. ''cut'' {{IPA|/kʌt/}}.
The ''a'' sound in ''bra'' is written with a Greek ''[[Alpha|α]]'', which looks like a single-storey ''a.'' Because it's long in many dialects, it's {{IPA|/ɑː/}} in the IPA: {{IPA|/brɑː/}}. Likewise, the ''aw'' sound of ''law'' is long in many dialects, but, for many of you, different than the ''bra'' sound. It's written with an "open" ''o'' (just as {{IPA|/ɛ/}} looks like an open ''e'', since a small cap ''o'' looks just like a regular ''o''ː ''law'' {{IPA|/lɔː/}}. (
Finally, there's the slurred [[schwa]] sound found in many unstressed syllables, as at the end of ''sofa.'' This is written {{IPA|/ə/}}, a symbol used in many US dictionaries. The stressed syllable is marked with a tick: ''sofa'' {{IPA|/ˈsoʊfə/}}. Note that the letter {{IPA|/ə/}} is never used for a stressed vowel; for words like ''cut,'' we use {{IPA|/ʌ/}}: ''butter'' {{IPA|/ˈbʌtər/}}, ''cuppa'' {{IPA|/ˈkʌpə/}}.
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** {{IPA|/θ/}} for the ''th'' in ''thick'' {{IPA|/ˈθɪk/}} (from the Greek letter [[theta]])
** {{IPA|/ð/}} for the ''th'' in ''those'' {{IPA|/ˈðoʊz/}} (from the Old English letter [[eth]], which was used for the ''th'' sounds)
* The sound of the digraph ''SH'' is transcribed with the
* There is a sound with no letter or digraph in English, though sometimes written ''ZH'' in foreign words. It's usually written ''si,'' as in ''vision.'' In the IPA, it's written with a 'stretched' ''Z'', {{IPA|/ʒ/}}: ''vision'' {{IPA|/ˈvɪʒən/}}.
* As noted above, the digraph ''CH'' is a sequence of sounds, ''T'' plus ''SH''. This may be hard for an English speaker to hear, but is obvious to a French speaker, which is why we get spellings like ''[[Tchaikovsky]]'' but also ''catch'' in English. (Adding a ''t'' to ''ch'' doesn't make any difference, because the ''ch'' already has a ''t'' sound within it.) The IPA uses the same
* Similarly, the English consonant ''J'' is a sequence with a ''d'' sound in it. For instance, in ''judge,'' adding the ''d'' doesn't affect the consonant sound, just the vowel. In the IPA, this is transcribed {{IPA|/dʒ/}}: ''jump'' {{IPA|/ˈdʒʌmp/}}, ''judge'' {{IPA|/ˈdʒʌdʒ/}}, or ''Jesus'' {{IPA|/ˈdʒiːzəs/}}.
* Finally, the IPA letter {{IPA|[r]}} is officially a [[Trill consonant|trill]], as in Italian and Spanish. The rather unusual English ''R'' sound is transcribed with a turned ''r,'' {{IPA|[ɹ]}}. However, since this makes no difference within English, and not all English dialects actually use the {{IPA|[ɹ]}} sound, it's very common to see English ''R'' transcribed with a plain {{IPA|/r/}}, and that's the convention used on Wikipedia.
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The second purpose concerns only linguists. The first purpose concerns any interested reader, but only to a limited degree, as transcribing words into IPA does not need to be perfect or overly [[Phonetic transcription#Narrow versus broad transcription|precise]] (something for fluent IPA users to consider). The word "transcribe" is used to distinguish this from normal writing or spelling, which has other purposes (such as preserving word etymologies and meaning).
IPA is complex enough to represent nearly anything, but high-fidelity transcriptions will use glyphs that are unfamiliar to English readers and unpracticed in English [[phonology]]. For example a transcription of something like the Icelandic name ''[[Eyjafjallajökull]]'' is pronounced {{IPA
== Notes ==
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