This page allows you to easily type phonetic transcriptions of English words in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). You can edit your text in the box and then copy it to your document, e-mail message, etc.

Help

Press Alt with the appropriate letter. For example, to type ɔ or ɒ, hold Alt and press O once or twice.

Stop the mouse over each button to learn its keyboard shortcut.

Alt + click a button to copy a single character to the clipboard.

You can select text and press Ctrl + C to copy it to your document. In your target document, press Ctrl + V, or, if you want to paste the text without formatting, try Ctrl + Shift + V.

After pasting, you may need to choose an IPA-enabled font (such as Lucida or Arial) in your target application to see all characters.

more help

Type IPA phonetic symbols for English?

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This IPA keyboard allows you to type pronunciations of English words as they appear in major English dictionaries from publishers like Longman, Oxford, etc. Dictionary transcriptions are “phonemic transcriptions”. They only give you the broad-strokes view of the pronunciation – just enough to make sure you won’t confuse two different words. If you need to represent precise sound qualities (for example, the different quality of p in pot vs. spot) or differences between accents of English, use the full IPA keyboard instead.

After you copy text from the above box and paste it into your word processor or e-mail message, make sure you choose a Unicode font with IPA symbols in your word processor or e-mail application. Otherwise, phonetic symbols may not display correctly.
Recommended IPA fonts available on various platforms:
- Windows: Segoe UI, Cambria, Calibri, Arial, Times New Roman, Tahoma or Lucida Sans Unicode (incomplete)
- MacOS: Lucida Grande, Arial, Times New Roman, Tahoma
- Linux: depends on the distro, but Linux Libertine, Linux Biolinum and DejaVu Sans are good bets.
If some of the symbols don’t display correctly, you’ll need to download a third-party IPA font.
For help with transcribing, refer to Antimoon’s chart with IPA phonetic symbols, example words, and recordings (make sure you read the footnotes).
Notes on specific symbols:
- ɪ̈ can be used to represent a “weak ɪ” (as in possible), which usually sounds like something between ɪ and ə.
- ʊ̈ can be used to represent a “weak ʊ” (as in education), which usually sounds like something between ʊ and ə.
- t̬ can be used to indicate places where a “flap t” is normally pronounced in American English. For example, letter can be transcribed /ˈlet̬əʳ/.
- ^ə can represent an optional ə (schwa) before a syllabic consonant, as in button.
- ɛ, ɹ, ɚ, ɝ, ɫ and ɾ are not necessary in phonemic transcriptions, but are provided for those who might need them.
If you’re learning other languages, check out my other online keyboards, e.g. Russian keyboard, French keyboard, etc.

Chart with IPA symbols (opens new window)