Pronunciation Information
In this dictionary a guide is given to the pronunciation of English words using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The accent represented is Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, which is an accent used by many speakers of Southern British English. There are several other accents of English, but RP is perhaps the most widely used as a norm for teaching purposes.

 Two kinds of information are needed if a word is to be appropriately pronounced. We need to know about each of the sounds that make up the word, and we need to know about stress. In each of the pronunciations shown in this dictionary, at least one vowel symbol is in heavier type and underlined. Sometimes more than one vowel is in heavier type and underlined:

 result  / /

disappointing  / /

 Heavy type and underlining give important information both about stress and the sounds that make up a word.

 When a word is spoken in isolation, stress falls on all the syllables that contain vowels that are in heavier type and underlined. When two syllables are marked in this way, the second syllable has primary stress while the first has secondary stress; if only one is marked, it has primary stress. A word spoken in isolation is called the citation form.

 When a word is used in context, either or both of the stresses found in the citation form may be absent. The one-stress or two-stress patterns of English speech are associated not with individual words but with the information units that a speaker constructs:

 The result was disappointing
/ /

 A disappointing result
//

 Very disappointing indeed
//

Because stress patterns are associated with linguistic units larger than the word, a dictionary cannot state in advance which of the stresses present in a citation form will be absent when a word is used in context.

 Vowels that are in heavier type and underlined are called protected vowels. This means that, irrespective of whether a vowel is stressed or unstressed in a particular context, there is very little variation in the way a speaker pronounces it. Unprotected vowels, conversely, which are always unstressed, may show considerable variation in the way they are pronounced.

 In this dictionary, the range of possible variation is shown by the tiny superscript numbers printed just above and to the right of the vowel symbol. In the word // (city), for example, the protected vowel is always pronounced / i /, irrespective of whether it is stressed or not. Conversely, the key at the foot of this page shows that the pronunciation of the unprotected vowel may be made in the rangebetween /i:/ and //. In the word / / (useless) the protected vowel is always pronounced /u:/, irrespective of whether it is stressed or not, while the pronunciation of the unprotected vowel may be made in the range between // and //.

 Some unprotected vowels are pronounced in only one way. For example, the second vowel in // (hallmark) is stressed neither in its citation form nor when the word is used in context, but there is still very little variation in the way it is pronounced.

 Some sounds, both vowels and consonants, are heard only in rather slow and careful speech. // (usual) and // (columnist) are often heard as // and //. In such cases the superscript 0 indicates that the sound in question is often omitted:

 usual   //
columnist   //

 All superscripts and the variations they stand for are given in the key below.

Pronunciation Key
Vowels Consonants Superscripts
heart, start, calm. bed talk ( <=> 0) ( <=> 0)
act, mass, lap. done van ( <=> ) ( <=> )
dive, cry, mind. fit win ( <=> ) ( <=> )
fire, tyre, buyer. good loch ( <=> ) ( <=> )
out, down, loud. hat zoo ( <=> ) ( <=> )
flour, tower, sour. yellow ship ( <=> ) ( <=> )
met, lend, pen. king measure ( <=> ) ( <=> )
say, main, weight. lip sing ( <=> ) ( <=> )
fair, care, wear. mat cheap ( <=> ) ( <=> )
fit, win, list. nine thin ( <=> ) ( <=> )
feed, me, beat. pay then 0 after a consonant symbol indicates
probable omission: k0, t0, h0 etc.
near, beard, clear. run joy
lot, lost, spot. soon
note, phone, coat.
more, cord, claw.
boy, coin, joint.
could, stood, hood.
you, use, choose.
sure, pure, cure.
Turn, third, word.
but, fund, must.
the weak vowel in 
butter, about,
forgotten
 


Original page is located at http://www.linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de:8099/misc/pronunciation.html