Every sound, one alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet gives each sound exactly one symbol. Learn the 187 below once and you can read the pronunciation of any word in any of the 16 languages here — and see which sounds you already own from a language you speak. Click a symbol to see how each language spells it.

Per-language views (spelling → sound rules, with a word tracer): English · French · Spanish · Portuguese · German · Italian · Georgian · Russian · Hindi · Mandarin Chinese · Cantonese · Vietnamese · Korean · Japanese · Malay · Turkish

Tones

Two of the languages here use pitch as spelling, not expression. Cantonese has six pitch shapes (and a traditional count of nine — the extra three are the same pitches on syllables that stop dead); Mandarin has four plus a neutral. They get their own workshop: hear every tone, drawn and played side by side →

Pitch, stress & rhythm

The layer spelling doesn't record: which languages let pitch change a word (Cantonese, Mandarin), which let stress change one (English, Spanish, Italian, German), which use pitch only to ask a question (Georgian), and which have no word stress at all (French). See what each language does →

The combination lab

Click sounds to chain them, then play. Everything is synthesised live from its phonetic description — no recordings — so you can build syllables that exist in no language at all and still hear them. Try ki against ku, or stack a Chao tone letter after a vowel.