The International Phonetic Alphabet is a standardised set of symbols, one per distinct speech sound, maintained by the International Phonetic Association. It lets linguists, dictionaries, and language learners write pronunciation unambiguously across any language.

Why does each symbol have a Unicode code point?

Many IPA symbols are not on a normal keyboard, so they are encoded as specific Unicode characters. Knowing the code point lets you insert the exact glyph in HTML, JSON, or a programming string without copy-paste errors.

Which accent does this chart describe?

The vowel set here follows Received Pronunciation, the reference accent used in many British dictionaries. Consonant symbols are largely shared across English accents, though General American differs on some vowels.

The schwa, written as the symbol at code point U+0259, is the neutral mid-central vowel heard in unstressed syllables such as the first sound of about. It is the most common vowel sound in English.

What do the small vertical marks mean?

The raised vertical line is the primary stress mark placed before the stressed syllable, and the lowered line marks secondary stress. The colon-like length mark shows that a vowel is held longer.

What is the IPA Phonetic Symbol Reference?

Searchable reference of International Phonetic Alphabet symbols used to transcribe English — vowels, diphthongs, consonants, and stress marks — each with a sound type, an example word, and its Unicode code point. Click any symbol to copy it. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

IPA Phonetic Symbol Reference

Name: IPA Phonetic Symbol Reference
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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The International Phonetic Alphabet, symbol by symbol

This reference lists the IPA symbols used to transcribe English pronunciation. Each entry pairs a symbol with its phonetic description, an English example word, and the Unicode code point you need to insert that exact character in a document or program. Use it as a quick lookup when reading dictionary transcriptions or building language tools.

How it works

Every sound the IPA can write is a phoneme — a contrastive unit of sound. Symbols are organised by how they are produced: where in the mouth (place) and how the airflow is shaped (manner). Vowels are described by tongue height and frontness; consonants by place (bilabial, alveolar, velar) and manner (plosive, fricative, nasal, approximant) plus voicing. Because most IPA glyphs are not ASCII, each has a fixed Unicode code point, so the schwa is always U+0259 and the velar nasal is always U+014B. Stress and length are shown with suprasegmental marks rather than separate sounds.

Key IPA symbols to know

A handful of IPA symbols appear in almost every English pronunciation guide. These are the ones worth learning first:

Symbol	Unicode	Sound type	Example word
`ə`	U+0259	Mid-central vowel (schwa)	about, alone
`ɪ`	U+026A	Near-close front unrounded vowel	kit, sit
`ʊ`	U+028A	Near-close back rounded vowel	foot, put
`ɑ:`	U+0251	Open back unrounded vowel	father, car
`ʃ`	U+0283	Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative	ship, fish
`ŋ`	U+014B	Velar nasal	sing, ring
`θ`	U+03B8	Voiceless dental fricative	thin, bath
`ð`	U+00F0	Voiced dental fricative	this, breathe
`ˈ`	U+02C8	Primary stress mark	`ˈfa.ðə` (father)
`ː`	U+02D0	Length mark (long vowel)	`biːn` (bean)

Practical uses for this reference

Dictionary reading: modern English dictionaries use IPA transcriptions next to headwords. This chart lets you decode any pronunciation entry without memorizing the full alphabet.
Language tool development: if you are building a text-to-speech, pronunciation guide, or language-learning app, you need the exact Unicode code point for each symbol to store and render them correctly.
Academic and linguistic writing: IPA symbols are the standard for phonology papers. Copy-clicking from this reference is faster and more accurate than hunting through a Unicode character picker.

Tips and notes

Search vowel, fricative, or diphthong to pull up a whole sound class at once.
Click a symbol to copy the exact glyph — paste it into HTML entities, JSON strings, or markup without retyping.
This is the Received Pronunciation reference set; some vowels differ in General American (for example the lot vowel and the rhotic r), so check your target accent when transcribing.