IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard set of symbols used for notating pronunciation that was established by the International Phonetic Association to enable more universally and accurately understood communication regarding pronunciation. IPA is used extensively by singers, speech pathologists, linguists, and others whose areas of expertise involve in-depth study of pronunciation.

How IPA is used in different contexts varies. In some instances, nearly every nuance of pronunciation — dynamic stress, vowel duration, precise vowel quality, etc. — are represented in IPA notation. Have a look at the full chart of the IPA to get an idea of how specific one can be when using IPA; however, my own experience with IPA, and that of most singers, consists primarily of writing symbols for vowels and consonants only. While it is easy enough to use the symbols for other aspects of pronunciation, I am not expert enough in the standard pronunciation of any of these languages to feel comfortable using them.

If you are not familiar with IPA, read below for notes on how to pronounce each symbol. Naturally, IPA cannot perfectly denote the sound of a particular sound, and one often finds that the same IPA symbol is pronounced slightly differently in different languages.

You can also click on the IPA symbols to hear them pronounced.

IPA symbol	Description of corresponding sound
Lowercase A	A brighter version of the sound denoted by the cursive A symbol below, as in the French word “égal”.
Cursive A	A deep, open “ah” sound, as in the English word “father” and the French word “âme”.
Cursive A with tilde	Like the previous sound, but slightly nasalized, as in the French word “silence”.
Lowercase B	Pronounced basically as in English. Care should be taken to minimize aspiration in Italian and Latin and to avoid de-voicing into “p” at the ends of phrases.
Lowercase D	Pronounced basically as in English. Care should be taken to minimize aspiration in Italian and Latin.
Epsilon	An “eh” sound, like in the English words “let” and “kettle”.
Epsilon with tilde	A nasalized “eh” sound, like in the French word “divin”.
Lowercase E	A combination of the sounds notated with the epsilon and lowercase I symbols, as in the French word “égal” and the German word “Meer”.
Schwa	Pronounced as in the English word “deny” and the French word “de”.
Lowercase F	Pronounced as in English.
Lowercase G	Pronounced as in English. Care should be taken never to de-voice this consonant, particularly at the ends of phrases.
Turned H	Pronounced like the lowercase Y, but in a glide, as in the French word “puissante”. The relationship between this sound and that of the lowercase Y is analogous to that between the sounds of lowercase W and lowercase U.
Lowercase I	Pronounced like “keep” in English. Native anglophones should take special care never to pronounce like “with” and “bit”.
Lowercase J	This is a “glide”, a short vowel sound that transitions between two longer vowels. It is pronounced like the “j” in the English word “Hallelujah”.
Lowercase K	Pronounced as in English, though in Italian and Latin, this consonant should be aspirated as little as possible.
Lowercase L	Pronounced basically as in English. Those of Russian origin and some Americans should take care to pronounce with the tip of the tongue only.
Lowercase M	Pronounced basically as in English. Care should be taken to provide enough voice for this consonant so that it may be heard clearly.
Left-tail N (at left)	A combination of “n” and “j”. It is pronounced like the “ni” in the English word “onion”.
Eng	Pronounced like “ng&rdquo in the English word “ring”.
Lowercase N	Pronounced as in English. One should take care to give sufficient voice to this consonant for the sake of clarity.
Open O	Pronounced like the “aw” in the English “law”. In French, this sound mixes slightly with the schwa sound, as in the word “donne”.
Lowercase O	A more closed variant of the open O sound, approximated by the vowel in the English word “low”. Most anglophones, however, (unwittingly?) apply a slight diphthong to this sound; a better example might be the French word “haut”.
Lowercase O with tilde	A nasalized version of the preceding sound, as in the French word “conduit”.
O-E digraph	A more open variant of the schwa sound, with the lips slightly rounded, as in the French word “peuple”.
Slashed O	A darker version the preceding sound, approximated by rounding the lips and raising the tongue, as in the French word “feu”.
O-E digraph with tilde	A nasalized variant of the lowercase OE ligature, as in the French word “un”.
Lowercase P	Pronounced as in English. Care should be taken in Italian and Latin to aspirate this consonant as little as possible.
Lowercase R	Lightly rolled “r” sound, as used typically in Spanish. There are variants on this symbol to indicate the degree to which the “r” is rolled, but this tutorial will just use this one symbol for everything. Native anglophones should be careful to roll with the tip of the tongue.
Lowercase S	Pronounced as in English.
Esh	Pronounced like “sh” in the English word “shell”.
Lowercase T	Pronounced as in English, though in Italian and Latin singers should take care to aspirate this sound as little as possible.
Lowercase U	Pronounced like the “oo” in the English word “food”. Americans should take care to pronounce this vowel as a pure vowel, avoiding the widespread tendency to “slide” it.
Lowercase V	Pronounced as in English. Care should be taken to give sufficient voice to this sound.
Lowercase W	Pronounced as in English.
Lowercase Y	A combination of the sounds of lowercase I and lowercase U, as in the French word “sur” and the German word “über”.
Lowercase Z	Pronounced as in English, though many anglophones do not voice this consonant sufficiently, particularly at the ends of phrases.
Yogh	Pronounced like the “s” in the English word “measure”. Often written as “zh” in non-IPA English dictionaries.