About Phonetizer
What Phonetizer does
Phonetizer converts English text into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). IPA is a set of symbols for speech sounds. A transcription such as /ˈaɪðə/ is a pronunciation of the word either. It is not a translation, and it is not a respelling in ordinary English letters.
On the converter you type or paste English, choose British or American, and press Convert. The transcription is shown with your text. Dictionary entries are published one word at a time as Word Pages. Two other pages use that dictionary: the Syllable Counter counts syllables from the stored pronunciation, and the IPA Keyboard inserts phonetic symbols into a text field.
A desktop app for Windows and Mac OS X is sold separately from website Premium. Downloads lists a Windows purchase and a Mac OS X App Store listing. The rest of this page is about the website.
How a conversion is made
Phonetizer looks up each word in its dictionary for the accent you selected. British and American pronunciations are stored as separate entries, so the same spelling can have two transcriptions. In the transcriptions on this page, ˈ marks the syllable with primary stress.
Phonetizer uses pronunciation dictionaries, supports certain derived word forms, and marks words whose pronunciation cannot be determined. Converting the word xyzzy on its own is shown as /(xyzzy)/.
You can turn on a Cyrillic transliteration of the IPA. Compare shows the British and American transcriptions of the same text together. The result is generated automatically and can be wrong. After a conversion you can edit the transcription in the converter.
Some spellings have more than one pronunciation in the pronunciation inventory. The Word Page shows one preferred transcription and labels the others “Also accepted.” Where the inventory lists no alternative, the page shows the preferred form only. The examples below are the forms those pages show for these entries. They describe these entries only. They are not a rule for every English word.
British and American examples
schedule
- British: /ˈʃedjuːl/. Also accepted: /ˈskedjuːl/.
- American: /ˈskeʤuːl/.
The preferred British form starts with /ʃ/. The other accepted British form, and the American form, start with /sk/. The American entry writes the middle consonant as /ʤ/. The American inventory lists no second form.
either
Both accents record /aɪ/ and /iː/ as possible first vowels. The preferred British form uses /aɪ/. The preferred American form uses /iː/. The American forms end in /r/. The British forms do not.
Who it is for
Learners use Phonetizer to see a pronunciation before they say a word or read a passage aloud. Teachers use it to put IPA next to a text they are preparing. Linguists use it when they want British and American transcriptions from this dictionary, including the spellings where more than one pronunciation is accepted.
Free and Premium
Guests can convert up to 100 characters per request. A registered account can convert up to 300 characters per request and store up to 10 history entries. Premium removes those length and history limits for an active subscription. Export your transcriptions to TXT or PDF, or print them directly from Phonetizer with Premium.
Who operates it
Phonetizer is operated by Linguistador LLC.
Questions and corrections: contact form or support@phonetizer.com.