How to remember IPA phoneme symbols: my tricks!

Hi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to teach you how to remember phoneme symbols

in IPA. Here are some of the symbols. These symbols are for the vowels, but I'm also going

to teach you how to remember the diphthongs and the consonants. These symbols each represent

a sound in English. Some of them... Some of you will know and have heard of these already,

and for some of you it will be completely new to you, a new subject. When I was learning

these, what was really hard for me was to remember some of the symbols because they

don't look like English letters, and to associate them with a sound. And I think... I've... I've

known of these for about seven years, but it was very, very slowly, slowly that I remembered

them. And the reason I've made this lesson is to make it easier for people to remember

that association, and that's why I've got some pictures, and sometimes it's some words

that can help you remember the sound and the symbol.

So we're going to start... We'll start here, and this first column, we go across the vowel

chart here. "E", "say cheese", "cheese". You know when somebody takes a picture? "Say cheese!"

The word "cheese" has the sound in it. Next we have "i". To remember "i", we can remember

the phrase "English ship". The phrase "English ship" has the "i" twice in it; once in English

and once in "ship". And I drew a picture of a ship here. Here we have the English flag.

This is the St. George's flag, which represents only England. And if you look inside the boat,

we can also see the shape of the "i". Okay? Next we have "u". And if you imagine a cow

in a field, do you ever see them when they have that ring through their nose, like that?

That is the same kind of shape when you see it in the nose as the phoneme "u". And very

conveniently that phoneme is in the word "bull". So if we say the phrase "pull the bull" and

we see that picture in our heads, that can help us remember. And also what's good to

know about these words, if you listen to me say them, they sound... The "u" sounds slightly

different in them. "Pull the bull", but they... The two words have that sound in. When we're

learning the phoneme, sometimes it can be a little bit confusing that they slightly

change sound in some different words, so I'm just pointing that out to you; they have the

same sound. Next we have "oo", "mood for food". And in this one I changed the shape slightly

to make it a smiley face, so if you're happy to be eating food, it can remind you of this

sound. "Mood for food".

Okay, next. Here's one of the easiest ones to remember. This is "eh". Most words with

"eh" in are spelt with the letter "e", so it makes it easier for us. And this drawing

that we have to remember it is "wet pet". You know when a dog goes outside in the rain,

or after it's been washed, it comes in the house and it shakes like that, and all the...

All the water drops fly away. This is what this picture shows; he's a wet pet.

Next we have the schwa. The schwa, I remember it in a few ways. First I remember it as the

upside-down "e", but I also remember it... It's hard to say the schwa on its own without

it being in a word, but it's something like "uh", "uh", "uh", "uh". Something like that.

It doesn't sound like it's got a question mark in it. It's not... Every time we say

a schwa, it's like "uh". It's not going up, but if we just isolate the sound, "uh", it

is closest to being a bit confused about something. So I turned the upside-down "e" into a face

there to help remember it. Next we have "er", and that vowel we can remember by two words.

First, we have "bird" and we have "worm", and the worm is in the shape of the symbol.

The bird is not really in the shape of the symbol, but we see it inside its wings.

Next we have "oar", and the way I remember this sound is to think of the word "sword".

And if we look at the symbol here of the sword, we can see the shape is inside the sword.

And here's a phrase that we can remember to make more connections in our memory, and this

one is called "born with a sword". So it's a baby holding a sword, as if it's a toy.

Next we have "a". "A", the word I always think of first when I consider that phoneme and

bring it to mind is "cat". Always think of "cat". But how I remember to write the phoneme,

it's a little bit more difficult than some of the other ones, in a way, because it's

like an "a" next to an "e", but they... When they come together, they look slightly different

than we're used to seeing them. So we can remember it's something like "a" plus "e".

And when we bring those sounds together, we get "a", so then we get the word "cat". And

if you have a medical emergency in England and you have to go to the hospital, the place

that you go is the accident and emergency, so the drawing to remember it is an ambulance,

and the ambulance is driving to the accident and emergency. Perhaps the cat has had an

accident and it's going to the accident and emergency now.

The next symbol to remember is "a". I always remember this one, "a". In my mind, it sounds

like the sound is going up somewhere. "A", "a". It's a little bit similar to this, but

with more power to it, and it's more... It's more of a clear sound, because this sound,

the schwa, is always unstressed. So, this sound, the "a", we can remember it with the

phrase "thumbs up", "thumbs up". And we can remember the hand, "thumbs up". "Thumbs up"

has two of those sounds in it. "Thumbs up".

Next we have, when we go to the doctor's and the doctor wants to check our health, how

are we in the back of our throats, the doctor says to us, "Say 'ah'", and he puts something

on the tongue so he can look inside. When we say "ah", that sound is a lot more open,

"ah", we have to open widely to say that sound, in comparison to "cheese". "Cheese" is a wide

sound, our lips are spread wide, but for "say 'ah'" we're much more open in the shape.

And the last vowel to learn, I find... This sound is very easy for me to remember, "oh",

but I find the symbol difficult to remember when I'm drawing it. So, it's a straight line

and it's like a letter B, but without the tail at the top. And how I can remember this

sound, "oh", is in the phrase "hot body bottom". It's like the Kim Kardashian of the phonemes,

and this is its bottom, and high heel shoes, and it's... It's the... It's the sexy phoneme,

and we call it the hot body bottom.

Next we're going to learn the... How to remember the consonants and the diphthongs. Now let's

look at the consonants. Here they are. The good thing about this is we don't need to

learn all of them, because when the phoneme symbol looks like the letter, that's the way

they sound. So we can forget about "p", "b", "t", "d", we can forget about all the ones

that we recognize already, and we'll just look at all these weird symbols that we don't

understand.

So we'll start with this one. This one is "ng", "ng", and we usually get it at the end

of a word. "Sing", "sang", "sung". "Sing", "sang", "sung". And another word that can

help us to remember this one is the word "tongue", "tongue". When we say this sound, "ng", our

tongue must go up to the back of our palate and... And close off there to stop any air

coming out. "Ng". So if you make that sound with me now, "ng", you'll feel your tongue

go up, and that can help you remember it. "Sing", "sang", "sung". To sing, "sang", "sung",

use your tongue.

Now we have this one. Looks a little bit like a letter "s". Also sounds a little like a

letter "s", "sh", "sh", "sh", but sounds the "s" with the letter "h". It's in the word

"shush", "sh", "sh", "sh".

Next we have the word... The phoneme "zh", "zh", "zh". This is a hard one to remember,

but actually it's not in so many, so many words. It's not in that many common words,

so we're not going to see this one all the time. It's in the word "television", "television",

"television". And I've shown it by a TV symbol with an "i" inside. This is the "vision" part.

"Vision". And I also show it here to help us remember the symbol. The shape here, which

is a little bit like a three, and the way I've drawn it here is like... Kind of like

a nose and a mouth in a cartoon style, and we have the vision there as well. So whatever

helps, if that helps you, remember this also.

Next we have this symbol. This symbol has a name that many people know. These symbols

also have names, but they're not ones that so many people would recognize. This symbol

is called "theta", "theta", so if that helps you remember "theta". It's also in the word

"tooth", "tooth". When we make this sound, our tongue is next to our teeth, and we...

As we release air, we get the sound, the theta sound. So, what helps me remember is to visualize

the shape of a tooth, and let's remind ourselves how the symbol looks. In a way, that's...

That's one tooth, and that's the one at the bottom, so we can see that in our minds as

well. Okay? It's in the word "tooth", and when I make that sound, my tongue is behind

my front teeth, and I release air.

Now this one, this... See if you can follow me on this one. This is a very strange-looking

symbol, and I was looking at trying to think of an image that could represent it or what

it looks like, and the best I could think of was some kind of flying bug. So, here's

my flying bug, and to make this sound, we keep our tongue in the same position as theta,

but we voice this sound with vibrations instead of air, so this sound is "th", "th", "th",

"th". So, imagine this bug, it's flying in a way... In a way that it's not a steady sound

like this, "th", it's not like that. This bug is flying and then stopping, flying and

then stopping, and it sounds like "th", "th", "th", "th", "th", "th" with its little wings.

And I remember it with the phrase "this rhythm", "th", "th", "th", "th". And again, this sound

is not in so many words, it's usually in grammar words like "this", "those". We don't have

hundreds and hundreds of words for this sound, so when we... When we learn it in the main

words that we find it, the grammar words, it helps us, we can recognize it more easily.

Now we have two symbols that are made up of two symbols together. This one and this one

are different to these because these are all just one. These sounds show us in their symbols

that they're made up of two sounds together. Well, not really two sounds together, a blend,

or they're close to that and close to that. So, this one is made up of the "th" and "sh",

but together it's "ch", "ch", "ch", "ch". And the word that always comes to my mind first

of all is the word "chair", "chair", "chair", "chair". So, I've drawn the chair, and to

show that there's the two sounds in the "ch", I've put the "t" behind the chair and the

"sh" as if it's sitting on the chair.

And finally, we get to the last IPA symbol for consonants. This one is in my name, is

in the word "jade", "jade". This one is made up of "d" and also "zh", "zh", "zh". What

is really interesting to me about this sound is when I was... I suppose it can still happen

now, but it's more rare. When I was younger and I used to say my name to some people,

I would say... They would say, "What's your name?" I'd say, "Jade", and they would say

back, "Dave". "Oh, no. Jade." And I didn't know at the time that the sound "zh" was made

up from... You know, it's partially a letter, the sound "d", so that explains why if I said

the word "jade", if some people couldn't hear right, there was too much noise, they might

have thought I said "d" instead. So we put those together, and then we get lots of words

with "zh" in it, such as "jade".

And it's hard... I don't know how useful this part is. If you look at the head of "jade",

we also see a... We see this symbol in the head. Maybe that helps you. I don't know.

So now we have the diphthongs. The diphthongs are really, really... I think they're really,

really hard to remember to associate the sound with the symbols. These come last, I would

say. Once you know all of these symbols and the vowels, then if you're still interested

to learn these ones, you'll just start to pick up gradually and slowly.

This diagram, this drawing can help us remember, because here is included all the diphthongs

of English, and his name is David Dip. "Dip" stands for "diphthong". That's his name. And

all the parts of his face have a diphthong sound in them. Here's his hair, "air", "air".

That's David's hair, "air". Here's David's ear, "ear", "ear", "ear". Here's David's mouth,

"ow", "ow", "ow". And here's David's nose, "ow", "ow", "ow". So we... Now we've got one,

two, three, four diphthongs, but there are more. You are David Dip, the curious boy.

Start off with "you". "You" is not actually classified as a diphthong. It is made up of

two sounds, "you", "you", and because it's a common sound in English, for example in

the word "you", it's useful for us to learn, so that's why it's here. "You", "you". You

are David, "eh", "eh", "eh" in the name David. He's David, "eh". The curious boy, "uh", "uh",

"uh". Curious, "uh". This phoneme is not a very common one. It's only in a few words

in English, so don't worry too much about it. You're not going to see it all the time.

You can just learn the common words it's in. Curious, "curious". And finally, we have "oy",

"oy". It's in the word "boy", "oy". He's David, the curious boy.

So there we are, all the symbols in IPA for you to remember. What you can do now is watch

my other videos on learning the phonemes in English. Thanks for watching. Bye.