How To Learn The International Phonetic Alphabet Ipa 5 Steps

Write beside each symbol an example of a word which would use it - this can be in your first language or a secondary (whichever you feel most comfortable with). Also write beside each symbol a clear explanation which will work with the example you have written to ensure you can understand quickly and readily what each IPA symbol means and how it can be used successfully.

Group together the symbols you think are relevant - such as open and closed vowel sounds, which should all go in to the same category. You could also group specific sounds under language subtitles - e. g. how does the German umlaut sound on particular vowels?

Make it suitable to your learning style - if you are a visual learner, colour code things and if you need to hear something, perhaps you could put together playlists that have a really specific example of a certain IPA symbol in the songs.

For example, get a poem in your first language and write out the IPA beneath the lines. Then speak it through to check if you are correct. Push yourself even further by attempting to apply IPA mentally when listening to music or to a movie. Compare how sounds of a certain symbol differ to others and remember the contrast for future use. Apply the skill to other languages also - it is an incredibly useful skill which can unlock many doors in the modern foreign languages, and provide a lot of foundation work on which to begin speaking one. Keep up these exercises and attempt to further use IPA from memory when doing so. The listening exercises mean you will not have your paper reference to help you, so this can be an advantage.

If you keep up some sort of repetitive behaviour (like writing things out) make sure you have short regular test exercises from memory so that you can track your progress and see where your weaker areas are. Focus on your weaker areas - if you already know the symbol for an open E sound (a backwards 3) then there is no sense in writing this out over and over. Instead focus on an area you know you have been struggling with, such as double consonants.