English has 44 distinct sounds which are called phonemes. However, it only uses 26 letters (the alphabet). In contrast, Spanish only has 24 sounds. As a result, there are a lot of sounds in English that we do not possess in Spanish.
Pronouncing accurately these sounds is crucial, since swapping one phoneme for another can completely change the meaning of a word or a phrase. When two words differ in only one phoneme, these are called minimal pairs. These will be explained in more detail later.
The IPA chart is a representation with symbols of the sounds that we make when talking (phonemes). IPA stands for International Phonetic Alphabet. There are some distinct sounds that are represented by the same letter. For instance, cat and bar. The phonetic transcription of cat is /ˈkæt/ whereas the phonetic transcription for bar (in British accent) is /ˈbɑː/.
Phonemes are usually represented within slash brackets "/" to differentiate them from the letters of the alphabet. For instance, /ˈtiːtʃər/ (teacher).
If you click on the previous link (INTERACTIVE PHONEMIC CHART), it will lead you to an interactive IPA chart.
Play the sounds of the phonemes by clicking on them.
