Learning Guides & Tools
Learning the International Phonetic Alphabet
This is an extremely useful website to use alongside any modules focusing heavily on phonetics and phonology. It allows you click different parts of the IPA chart (which will be explained early on in SEL1027) and allows you to listen to and directly engage with the different sounds. This interactivity is useful in helping you learn the IPA. It also contains some exercises to help you test your knowledge.
Pink Trombone
This is a realtime interactive speech synthesis tool. Play with the articulators and see what you get! This is a great way to learn about how articulation creates different kinds of sounds.
IPA TypeIt
This is a point and click site for IPA characters that aren't included in your usual font set, laɪk sʌm ʌv ðiz. Just click on the symbol you need to type it to the field, and then copy and paste it to where you need it. Note that the default here is to display sounds relevant for English - to get other symbols, select the "Full" IPA from the list on the right.
IPA Reader
This tool can read written IPA (for the most part). It can be useful to check if your transcriptions would "sound" how you expect them to. But also note some interesting caveats: think about what kinds of words it's less accurate with, and how the voice or accent you choose can affect the quality of the transcription.
Syntax Trees
Students should draw syntactic trees with one of the following programmes:
For more information on using syntax trees in your work, see the Language and Linguistics Style Guide.
Last updated