If there is an IPA symbol you are looking for that you do not see here, see [[Help:IPA]], which is a more complete list. For a table listing all spellings of the sounds on this page, see {{section link|English orthography|Sound-to-spelling correspondences}}. For help converting spelling to pronunciation, see {{section link|English orthography|Spelling-to-sound correspondences}}.
The words given as examples for two different symbols may sound the same to you. For example, you may pronounce each pair of [[Cot–caught merger|''cot'' and ''caught'' the same]], [[yod dropping|''do'' and ''dew'']], or [[marry-merry merger|''marry'' and ''merry'']] the same. This often happens because of dialect variation (see our articles [[English phonology]] and [[International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects]]). If this is the case, you will pronounce those symbols the same for other words as well.{{refn|name=localterms|This rule is generally employed in the pronunciation guide of our articles, even for local terms such as place names. However, be aware that not all editors may have followed this consistently, so for example if a pronunciation of an English town ending in ‑ford reads /‑fəd/, it doesn't mean that the /r/ would be absent in a rhotic dialect.}} Whether this is true for all words, or just when the sounds occur in the same context, depends on the merger.<ref>For example, if you have the ''marry–merry'' merger, you probably only merge {{IPA|/æ/}} and {{IPA|/ɛ/}} before {{IPA|/r/}}. You would still distinguish ''man'' and ''men''.</ref> The footnotes explain some of these cases.
