IPA Translator

Type or paste English to see it in IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet. Pronunciations are American English, from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary of over 125,000 words.

EnglishIPA

Stress marks

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How to use the IPA translator

Type or paste English in the box. The IPA appears as you type.
Words with more than one pronunciation are listed under the boxes, with the alternatives.
Untick Stress marks to remove ˈ and ˌ.
Press Copy to copy the transcription.

For example, Hello world becomes həˈloʊ wɜrld, and the international phonetic alphabet becomes ˌɪntərˈnæʃənəl fəˈnɛtɪk ˈælfəˌbɛt.

IPA chart for American English

These are the sounds the translator uses, with an example word for each. The small code is the ARPAbet name the dictionary uses. Tap a symbol to copy it.

Vowels

Consonants

How it works

Each word is looked up in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, a free dictionary of North American English made at Carnegie Mellon University. It writes sounds in ARPAbet codes like HH AH0 L OW1, which the translator turns into IPA. The dictionary marks stress on vowels, and IPA marks it at the start of the syllable, so the translator splits the word into syllables first, keeping consonants like st or pr together at the start of a syllable.

The dictionary is a list of words, not a speech model, so it does not change a word by context: it can’t tell read in the present from read in the past. That’s why the other pronunciations are shown.

The dictionary is used under its BSD license; see the license notice. Your text stays in your browser. It downloads only the parts of the dictionary it needs, filed by the first two letters of each word.

To spell a word letter by letter over the phone, use the NATO alphabet translator. To turn text into other scripts, try the rune translator or the Morse code translator.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert English to IPA?

Type or paste your text in the box. Each word is looked up in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary and written in IPA, with ˈ before the stressed syllable and ˌ before a secondary stress. Copy the result with the Copy button. Untick Stress marks for a plain transcription.

Is this British or American pronunciation?

American. The dictionary records North American English, so you get the r in words like car and water, and the vowel in hot is ɑ. British dictionaries drop that r and use different vowels, so the IPA for the same word can look different.

Why does a word have more than one pronunciation?

Many words are said more than one way, like read (rid or rɛd), the (ðə or ði), or tomato. The translator uses the dictionary’s first pronunciation and lists the others under the boxes, so you can pick the one that fits.

What if a word is not in the dictionary?

It is left as you typed it and listed under the boxes. That happens with rare names, new words, typos and numbers. Write numbers as words, like twenty, to get their IPA.

Which IPA symbols does it use?

A broad transcription, like the one in many learner dictionaries: r rather than the narrow ɹ, ɡ for the hard g, ɜr for the stressed vowel in bird and ər for the unstressed one in butter. The full set is in the chart below.

What do the stress marks mean?

The mark ˈ goes before the syllable said loudest, and ˌ before a syllable with lighter stress. In pronunciation, proʊˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃən, the main stress falls on eɪ, the fourth syllable. Words of one syllable get no mark, as in most dictionaries.

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