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I am looking for a tool to read a word written as phonetic transcription (IPA or APA).

I need it to provide users with a tool to verify if they've chosen the correct IPA transcription (users will need to provide a word and its transcription, users are not experts in IPA and APA, so there should be an easy way for them to verify what they use).

Heartspring
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LA_
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    It's a great idea. Let me know if you find one. Here's the nearest I have found. It does individual symbols. http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/ – chasly - supports Monica Aug 02 '15 at 09:58
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    Since the same symbol in IPA is used for slightly different sounds in various languages, any tool like this won't be perfect. But it is a great idea. – Peter Shor Aug 02 '15 at 10:04
  • Here: http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm –  Aug 02 '15 at 19:45
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    relevant questions on Linguistics SE: http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/3378/does-an-ipa-to-english-translator-exist, http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/9261/is-there-an-online-tool-to-convert-ipa-symbols-into-audio-sound?lq=1 – herisson Sep 20 '15 at 08:53
  • Oald has the pronunciation in IPA and an audio facility for BrE and AmE. See interpret: http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/interpret?q=interpret – rogermue Dec 18 '15 at 02:06
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    @PeterShor Isn't the whole point of IPA that it represents sounds unambiguously? – endolith Oct 31 '16 at 02:53
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    @endolith: you would need over a hundred vowel symbols to represent sounds completely unambiguously. IPA has diacritics you put on vowels that tell you to raise, lower, back, or front them (showing that the ear can distinguish between many more vowels than the 25 or so basic IPA symbols for vowels) but these diacritics see relatively little use. So for example, /e/ may represent a slightly different sound in different languages. – Peter Shor Oct 31 '16 at 03:09
  • @PeterShor Is there some other system that has the hundred vowel symbols? – endolith Oct 31 '16 at 04:06
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    @endolith: IPA with the diacritics probably has more vowel symbols than one would ever need. – Peter Shor Nov 01 '16 at 19:07
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    I've always regarded the lack of such a tool as evidence that IPA isn't really all it's cracked up to be. – Hot Licks Apr 06 '17 at 00:15
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    @endolith IPA is in itself language-agnostic and deals only with phonetic, articulatory fact. So that is the system you’re looking for. The trouble is that when you start using it regularly to refer to any individual language, many of the finer details become moot and can be economised away as long as your readers know you’re using a less specified symbol to represent a given value in a language. It’s just laziness and practicality, though; you can always specify everything fully. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 05 '18 at 12:00
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    Full IPA is obnoxiously huge, but does represent all possible sounds in all languages. However, phonemes follow a normal probability distribution. The same distributions can be seen in infant babble globally. So, we don't have to concern ourselves with most sounds, most of the time. Members of language families tend to have similar phonemes with increased variety near metropolitan areas. All of this can be represented in IPA. The key would be building a database with clips of all possible vocalizations, starting with the most widely used. Call Google? – Rubellite Fae May 21 '18 at 19:00
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    I’m voting to close this question because it belongs on ELU.Meta. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 19 '21 at 14:47
  • I voted to re-open so that the Q could get moved to meta, but apparently that is no longer possible due to age. Perhaps a friendly mod could migrate it? – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ May 26 '23 at 13:40
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    @Cascabel_ and Edwin: The question attracted 80 upvotes and 105k views–ergo it must be useful–far more than it would ever get on meta. I say leave it be. – Mari-Lou A May 26 '23 at 18:16
  • ELU.Meta is the place to request (and store) (and find) resource details. If researchers can't find it or be bothered to look there .... – Edwin Ashworth May 26 '23 at 18:53
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    @EdwinAshworth that's a very uncharitable comment, it's not whether people/users can be bothered to look for meta, it's 1) what the hell is meta? and 2) Meta? Where is it? You have to be naturally inquisitive to press all those icons and visit all the links. Not everyone is retired, not everyone finishes work at 5 p.m. ,not everyone can spare the time the amount of time necessary to explore. This site doesn't exactly explain that resources are in meta, many first-time users (perhaps all) only find out about meta when their question gets closed or migrated to that page. – Mari-Lou A May 27 '23 at 12:10
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    @Mari-Lou A ELU's target audience is (and is spelled out to be) linguists and proficient Anglophones. If a question is migrated to ELU'meta, answers will probably still become available. The comment is intended as a reminder of already agreed site policy to seasoned users such as yourself. OP has had answers for many years. – Edwin Ashworth May 27 '23 at 18:45

8 Answers8

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Sure! You can just use this tool

https://itinerarium.github.io/phoneme-synthesis/

It works by translating ipa to sampa with lexconvert and than playing it with meSpeak.js, that is a js clone of espeak.

Vincenzo La Spesa
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    I think most people can do better just approximating from the old Webster's-style pronunciation. At least I found it incapable of pronouncing either "potato" or "apple", choosing IPA patterns from several different sources. (I still find amazing that IPA, which is touted as being so much better than other schemes, does not have a decent pronunciation app.) – Hot Licks Dec 29 '17 at 13:27
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    Maybe...for the English sounds. But I'm learning Czech and I'm quite desperate.

    I agree, IPA should have an official and well-tested app

     – Vincenzo La Spesa Dec 29 '17 at 13:59
  • IPA was devised in the late 19th century; I doubt developing an app was foremost in their minds. – Stuart F Nov 19 '21 at 15:15
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I found this http://ipa-reader.xyz/ better than https://itinerarium.github.io/phoneme-synthesis/

(Text is too short too post without this line)

Titule
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    Perhaps you could use the extra characters to say why it's better. For example, the different nationalities available give a hint as to how IPA is interpreted differently in different languages (which is something I found fascinating, playing with the site). – Andrew Leach Aug 16 '19 at 20:44
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    Yep, your first link pronounces "potato" (from Cambridge) far better than the github one. – Hot Licks Aug 16 '19 at 20:50
  • Currently down :( – wjandrea Jun 28 '23 at 16:51
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There's a limited one available online, if you happen to have an Alexa Developer account.

  1. Create an Alexa Skills Kit account.
  2. Create a skill and fill out whatever fields you need to to enable the Testing tab (this isn't going to be easy).
  3. Navigate into your skill by choosing your skill from https://developer.amazon.com/edw/home.html

Now that you are on the skill's page, if the Testing tab is clickable (Search for the word Testing), you can do the following each time you want to test:

  1. Go to the Testing tab of your skill, and type something like this into the Voice Simulator:
    <phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="pɪˈkɑːn">pecan</phoneme>
  2. Click the Listen button

Here is the documentation: https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/speech-synthesis-markup-language-ssml-reference#phoneme

yegeniy
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I haven't done this myself, but I think it should be possible: first convert from IPA to SAMPA using Phonverter - a converter between IPA and SAMPA transcriptions then use MBROLA to pronounce the SAMPA.

An alternative is to use lexconvert (mirror) to do the conversion and feed the output to espeak.

Graham Toal
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    last link is broken – glS Jan 29 '18 at 18:24
  • The second one as well. – Fabian Röling Aug 22 '19 at 03:02
  • None of the link were broken - it may have been a network outage at your end. However I've updated one link to point to Wikipedia which should have more longevity, and I've modified the text so that you can find all the applications by searching for their names. This isn't the sort of stack exchange question where you can answer only by writing a description rather than linking, since the OP specifically asked for online tools. – Graham Toal Aug 23 '19 at 05:02
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Here are two tools that can potentially help answer your need:

  1. This tool reads aloud a word written as IPA phonetic transcription: https://itinerarium.github.io/phoneme-synthesis/

  2. This online converter will translate your text into its IPA phonetic transcription. It supports English and several other languages, and also reads your text aloud. https://tophonetics.com

Additional helpful resources are: 3. This Interactive IPA chart 4. The General Phonetics page on Wikimedia commons 5. the Help:IPA page on the English language Wikipedia

ynagar
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    The IPA tool in your first link does an incredibly poor job of pronunciation of even simple words. Of course, it's likely that much of the problem is with IPA -- it's not all it's cracked up to be. – Hot Licks Aug 16 '19 at 20:47
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Not exactly what you are looking for, but this is a helpful tool. It allows you to hear what IPA symbols mean.

IPA Learning Tool

vsrixyz
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Here is what helped me:

Best, Manfred

Adam
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Manfred
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https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-ia.htm

This has the sound as well. From my limited studies, I took a class on the history if English language, it seems legitimate.

Rebecca
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