Month: September 2016

source: CMU dictionary and the complete file (dict) from github

The Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary is an open-source machine-readable pronunciation dictionary for North American English that contains over 134,000 words and their pronunciations. CMUdict is being actively maintained and expanded. We are open to suggestions, corrections and other input.

Its entries are particularly useful for speech recognition and synthesis, as it has mappings from words to their pronunciations in the ARPAbet phoneme set, a standard for English pronunciation. The current phoneme set contains 39 phonemes, vowels carry a lexical stress marker:

0    — No stress

1    — Primary stress

2    — Secondary stress

Bear in mind that this is a dictionary. If your word is not in it (or was misspelled) nothing will be returned. This applies to items such as numbers. This tool will try to come up with pronunciations for words not in the dictionary.

The current phoneme set has 39 phonemes, not counting varia due to lexical stress. This phoneme (or more accurately, phone) set is based on the ARPAbet symbol set developed for speech recognition uses. You can find a description of the ARPAbet on Wikipedia, as well information on how it relates to the standard IPA symbol set.

source: Arpabet
Vowels

Monophthongs

Arpabet	IPA	Word examples
AO	ɔ	off (AO1 F); fall (F AO1 L); frost (F R AO1 S T)
AA	ɑ	father (F AA1 DH ER), cot (K AA1 T)
IY	i	bee (B IY1); she (SH IY1)
UW	u	you (Y UW1); new (N UW1); food (F UW1 D)
EH	ɛ	red (R EH1 D); men (M EH1 N)
IH	ɪ	big (B IH1 G); win (W IH1 N)
UH	ʊ	should (SH UH1 D), could (K UH1 D)
AH	ʌ	but (B AH1 T), sun (S AH1 N)
	ə	sofa (S OW1 F AH0), alone (AH0 L OW1 N)
AX		discus (D IH1 S K AX0 S); note distinction from discuss (D IH0 S K AH1 S)
AE	æ	at (AE1 T); fast (F AE1 S T)

Diphthongs

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
EY	eɪ	say (S EY1); eight (EY1 T)
AY	aɪ	my (M AY1); why (W AY1); ride (R AY1 D)
OW	oʊ	show (SH OW1); coat (K OW1 T)
AW	aʊ	how (HH AW1); now (N AW1)
OY	ɔɪ	boy (B OY1); toy (T OY1)

R-colored vowels

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
ER	ɝ	her (HH ER0); bird (B ER1 D); hurt (HH ER1 T), nurse (N ER1 S)
AXR	ɚ	father (F AA1 DH ER); coward (K AW1 ER D)
EH R	ɛr	air (EH1 R); where (W EH1 R); hair (HH EH1 R)
UH R	ʊr	cure (K Y UH1 R); bureau (B Y UH1 R OW0), detour (D IH0 T UH1 R)
AO R	ɔr	more (M AO1 R); bored (B AO1 R D); chord (K AO1 R D)
AA R	ɑr	large (L AA1 R JH); hard (HH AA1 R D)
IH R or IY R	ɪr	ear (IY1 R); near (N IH1 R)
AW R	aʊr	This seems to be a rarely used r-controlled vowel. In some dialects flower (F L AW1 R; in other dialects F L AW1 ER0)

Consonants

Stops

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
P	p	pay (P EY1)
B	b	buy (B AY1)
T	t	take (T EY1 K)
D	d	day (D EY1)
K	k	key (K IY1)
G	ɡ	go (G OW1)

Affricates

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
CH	tʃ	chair (CH EH1 R)
JH	dʒ	just (JH AH1 S T); gym (JH IH1 M)

Fricatives

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
F	f	for (F AO1 R)
V	v	very (V EH1 R IY0)
TH	θ	thanks (TH AE1 NG K S); Thursday (TH ER1 Z D EY2)
DH	ð	that (DH AE1 T); the (DH AH0); them (DH EH1 M)
S	s	say (S EY1)
Z	z	zoo (Z UW1)
SH	ʃ	show (SH OW1)
ZH	ʒ	measure (M EH1 ZH ER0); pleasure (P L EH1 ZH ER)
HH	h	house (HH AW1 S)

Nasals

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
M	m	man (M AE1 N)
EM	m̩	keep ’em (K IY1 P EM)
N	n	no (N OW1)
EN	n̩	button (B AH1 T EN)
NG	ŋ	sing (S IH1 NG)
ENG	ŋ̍	Washington (W AO1 SH ENG T EN)

Liquids

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
L	ɫ	late (L EY1 T)
EL	ɫ̩	bottle (B AO1 DX EL)
R	r or ɹ	run (R AH1 N)
DX	ɾ	wetter (W EH1 DX AXR)
NX	ɾ̃	wintergreen (W IY2 NX AXR G R IY1 N)

Semivowels

Arpabet	IPA	Word Examples
Y	j	yes (Y EH1 S)
W	w	way (W EY1)
Q	ʔ	glottal stop (uh-oh – ʔʌʔoʊ)
(missing)	hw or ʍ	“when” etc. in some dialects

source: English Word Pronunciation: Improve that Accent!
Another good link: Telfpedia

List of Lessons

Continue reading “Pronunciation Learning Guide”