The International Phonetic Alphabet

How can we track all of the sounds of language, exactly how we hear them? Why aren't our regular writing systems up to the challenge? This week on The Ling Space, we talk about the International Phonetic Alphabet: what it is, why we need it, and how the charts are arranged. Plus, we made our own IPA charts!

This is Topic #12!

This week's tag language: Spanish!

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Looking forward to next week!

[mckenziewinberry]

Sir, based solely on your t-shirts, your books, and the content of your videos, you are now my new best friend I've never met.

[piouppioup]

The discovery of the schwa in phonology was the magical moment English pronunciation started making a tiny bit of sense to me. I know plenty of my fellow students disagreed but I could have use phonology in my foreign language learning way earlier in my education. (Nice t-shirt :) )

[RaviAnandVeludandiTM]

Sir, this is the best video on youtube about phonetics that covers all the important or whole concept of it. thanks alot for this wonderful lesson.

[jordanschutten]

Absolutely love these videos

I'm strongly considering taking linguistics at some university in Québec (I'm from South Ontario) once I finish my last year of high school this year, and after watching a couple of your videos, I really feel like I would love it.

I'm currently addicted to learning several foreign languages, and I feel as though it keeps getting easier. And after watching this video, I believe it helps even further

[bridgenowhere]

I'm a graduate student in speech language pathology working on a language sample. Thanks for the excellent refresher on IPA. I will tell my friends and classmates about your channel!

[bisacool]

this is a rare (or unusual) modern channel teaching certain necessary topic yet not interested by the vast majority such as the international phonetic alphabet. I did not say it is not interesting it is just sad that it has less views. I think this deserve more. Thanks for the video keep up the good work man.

[EtTaRi]

Thanks for making this video! I've started studying phonetics & linguistics a year ago and transcription classes where we would practice the periodic table of speech sounds were always my favorite! I wish your great video would have been on youtube back then already because I'm sure it helps understand everything better (at least for foreign student. Somehow I find english definitions much easier than complicated german ones!)

[thelingspace]

piouppioup Thanks for the comment! Glad you like the t-shirt. ^_^

I really agree about teaching phonology in foreign language education. For example, the amount of time I spent getting the [ɸ] right for Japanese was pretty astonishing, but it's because I was told "it's sort of like an 'f', but not quite, and it sounds like this." So all I could do was just practice it over and over until I worked out how to do it. If someone told me it was a voiceless bilabial fricative, it'd've been so much easier to get! We shouldn't worry about a few extra symbols, like [ə], if it really makes the points clearer for the learner.

[CUThereVirtualTravel]

Loved your video. Can you point me in the direction of a reliable video that sounds out all the IPA symbols? I'd love to learn the symbols which aren't used in English.

[themaggattack]

[ai] ❤ [fənɛɾiks] YES!
You Have inspired me to go practice IPA by figuring out how to write "All hail the Glow Cloud!" in IPA. Thank you.

[sramsey]

I like your "I love phonetics" sign in the back haha

[ireneelska]

Thank you so much for this video! I'm cramming for my phonology final today and I just can't continue anymore. I'm just gonna watch all of your videos instead😁

[katrynarosescultetus]

Wow! I am in a linguistics class and struggling. Your videos are helpful. My next project is to try and understand what each phoneme "sounds" like. (you made it sound easy-oh this symbol sounds like this-not quite sure it will be easy.) I am going to look through your videos to see if you have an "ABC" for phoneme video. (if not-it might be a good addition for a new ESL teacher!)

[DSMWannabeLinguist]

I'm so pleased I stumbled across your channel! I'm a language enthusiast myself, so this is really useful. <3

[JoeGrimer]

Quite impressed by how fluid your pronunciation of Xhosa sounded (not that I speak it)

[bunny]

I'll teach Speech Communication for the first time, and I'm glad I stumbled upon your site.

[universalradio]

Night Vale shirt! Linguistics is highly applicable to WTNV. Oh and now you're talking about Carlos, Cecil, dogs and Angels.... this is a conspiracy

[Poppop-xljl]

Woo! I was waiting for your IPA video! This is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels.

[samuelisaac]

The subtle nightvale references throught the video are a great bonus.

[beebscott]

I’m a linguistics major, so this was a really interesting and informative video! I’ve gotta say all of the WTNV references made it for me, lol