# Famous Books written in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)



## onurkutlualp

Hello everyone,
Recently I decided to improve my accent. Can we find famous *books *or *movie scripts* written in the *IPA  *(lnternational Phonetic Alphabet)? Thank you very much in advance.


----------



## Ponyprof

onurkutlualp said:


> Hello everyone,
> Recently I decided to improve my accent. Can we find famous *books *or *movie scripts* written in the *IPA  *(lnternational Phonetic Alphabet)? Thank you very much in advance.


I doubt there is any such thing. Native English speakers rarely know IPA unless they are linguistics scholars. 

Listening to recorded speech and recording your own speech is probably more useful.


----------



## Chasint

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: An edition printed in the International Phonetic Alphabet Paperback – 21 Dec. 2014​


----------



## Ponyprof

Oh my. Never say never. I stand corrected.


----------



## onurkutlualp

Tank yo Chasint and Pnyprof for your answers.
I also saw "Alice Adventures on Wonderland" on internet. But that's the only one. I couldn't find any other books or movie scripts. But thank you so muchfor your answer. I it's the only one I will take it.


----------



## kentix

Native speakers don't use IPA. It's hard to imagine anyone putting a movie script into IPA. It would be a lot of time and effort for nothing.

But now you have an idea for a website.


----------



## elroy

It’s been done already.  Automatic Phonemic Transcriber


----------



## Myridon

The cover of the book suggests that there are capital IPA symbols (Alice has a capital ash.).


----------



## elroy

elroy said:


> It’s been done already.  Automatic Phonemic Transcriber


Hmmm...it’s not perfect.


----------



## Şafak

Is it even helpful? I’m genuinely shocked this is a thing and curious if it helps.


----------



## elroy

Why wouldn’t it help?  Any pronunciation aid can be helpful to learners.


----------



## Şafak

elroy said:


> Why wouldn’t it help?  Any pronunciation aid can be helpful to learners.


I don’t know 😅. I can barely read it. Should check these ipa books out one day.


----------



## elroy

This one is much better.
toPhonetics


----------



## kentix

That's much better.


----------



## kentix

And it's rhotic.


----------



## Myridon

For rhotic speakers, the book is about adventchas in wandaland.


----------



## elroy

kentix said:


> And it's rhotic.


That site lets you choose between American and British.  I chose American. 

They didn’t account for flapping, though (in “native,” for example).


----------



## Loob

Funny how they both have "putting" with a /ʌ/...


----------



## elroy

Here are some short passages in IPA:
IPA stories


----------



## kentix

With so many backwards letters my eyes can't decide which direction to go. That's my overall impression, too. It's going right to left.

Weird.


----------



## elroy

kentix said:


> It's going right to left.


It’s good practice if you ever decide to learn Arabic or Hebrew.


----------



## Myridon

Myridon said:


> For rhotic speakers, the book is about adventchas in wandaland.


I listened to a fantasy audio book read by a British speaker in which both Law and Lore fit the context. The IPA book might not clear this up.

I think I my "native" is much closer to a /t/ than my "putting".


----------



## entangledbank

Curiouser and curiouser. Google Translate offers me Vietnamese for the Dorothy Parker linked in #19. I can understand the automatic transcriber in #7 getting some things wrong (after all, 'putting' with /ʌ/ _is_ spelt 'putting'), but how on earth did it get those transcriptions for 'for' and 'website' and 'but'?

An automatic transcriber is not much use for a learner. Well, let's say none. Any learner who knows IPA probably also knows the basics of English pronunciation and how to use a dictionary. What they need is the pronunciations of less familiar or more difficult words - precisely the ones that don't fit the rules (such as they are) and that therefore the transcriber gets wrong.


----------



## kentix

One other pedantic point. It should probably be written _with_ the IPA alphabet. The books are still written _in_ English, even if they are printed/displayed with the IPA alphabet.


----------



## elroy

Jennifer Weiss said:


> I can barely read it. Should check these ipa books out one day.


The IPA Alphabet: How and Why You Should Learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (With Charts)


----------



## Myridon

If we're being pedantic, IPA isn't an alphabet by the definition used in other threads recently. (Recite the letters *in order* if you can.) It's a script, I think.


----------



## kentix

But they have alphabet in the name so I went with that.


----------



## elroy

But “in IPA” is used.  Usage wins.


----------



## dojibear

IPA represents sounds. English speakers in different places use different sounds. We call that "different accents". It is not just Britain, America, Australia and India. Even in the US, speakers from Boston, Texas and Georgia sound very different when they say the same words. You would need different IPA texts for these speakers.

Worse, English writing is not phonetic. The sound (the IPA spelling) is the same for word groups "two/too/to" but the meaning is different. There are hundreds of word groups like this.


----------



## berndf

elroy said:


> Hmmm...it’s not perfect.


The problem is that the apostrophes in the input were replaced by spaces. The IPA transcription itself is correct.


----------



## elroy

Ah, I hadn't noticed!

There are other imperfections, though:

"use": the consonant is /z/ not /s/ (I guess this is because the word was treated as a noun and not a verb.)
"IPA": this is an acronym; there's no such word as /ɪpɑː/!  (I guess the tool is not equipped to handle acronyms.)
"putting": wrong first vowel.  Actually, /pʌtɪŋ/ does exist, as a form of the verb " to putt," but that's infinitely less common so it's odd that the tool would use that as the default!
"a": This was treated as the letter of the alphabet as opposed to the indefinite article!  Again, the latter is exponentially more common!
"but": The "t" is definitely pronounced, either fully released or unreleased.  With the possible exception of regional variants, no one says /bʌ/.
And a question:

"for": Is it really /ɜ/ in British English?


----------



## Red Arrow

dojibear said:


> IPA represents sounds. English speakers in different places use different sounds. We call that "different accents". It is not just Britain, America, Australia and India. Even in the US, speakers from Boston, Texas and Georgia sound very different when they say the same words. You would need different IPA texts for these speakers.


IIPA can and is also used for phonemic transcriptions, not just phonetic transcriptions. Of course, some words still have different phonemes depending on the accent ("bath" with A like in "father" or with A like in "cat") but this is solved by having both a British and an American option. Other accents of English have more or less / exactly the same phonemes as one of these two.


----------



## kentix

But there are multiple pronunciations of many words within the U.S., too. The idea of an "American" option is a bit of a fantasy. Seeing the traditional spelling let's _everyone_ know what the word is, however they pronounce it. IPA spelling would require that somebody (millions of people actually) would see a word spelled in a way that didn't match their experience. It wouldn't be, in principle, different from the current system.

USA Family 1:
"Go ahead, son. Read the IPA. That's how you say that word."

USA Family 2:
"Yes, son, I know it's spelled (transcribed?) that way in your book, but here's how you really say it."

And these individual pronunciations don't form discrete groups, by region for instance. Different words overlap regions in individual ways. There is no simple on/off switch you can use. And that is not even taking into account mergers. Mary, marry and merry are three different pronunciations for some people and all the same for others. How are you going to spell/transcribe those for the entire country?

Logically, you reach a point where the only solution is that your "spelling" system forces you to change how you speak. But that seems like putting the cart before the horse. Is a writing system a tool _we use_ or one that _uses us_ to do its bidding?

It reminds me of the situation where computers, especially with numbers, are essentially forcing people to conform to their logic and style. Every time someone writes a month or day with a leading zero, a computer terrorist has won.


----------



## Ben Jamin

elroy said:


> It’s been done already.  Automatic Phonemic Transcriber
> 
> View attachment 56054


But it is not correct!


----------



## Ben Jamin

It would be best for you to buy some audiobooks. And remember: English is not really one language, it occurs in thousands of dialects and accents from New Zealand to Alaska, many of them very distinct from the English taught at courses for foreigners. Received pronunciation is also history now.


----------



## Kevin Beach

I think it would be very helpful, to be able to read known passages in different alphabets. For example, I wish that there were passages transliterated from English into the Hebrew and Arabic languages. I would find it so much easier to learn them.

Never tell anyone that their eccentric learning techniques are wrong. If they work for the individual, they're not wrong.


----------



## merquiades

I prefer using Merriam-Webster pronunciation symbols for English.  They are easy enough that anyone can use them and they are flexible enough to adapt to different accents.  For example long Ō in _know, bone_ anyone can read the symbol and apply the precise local pronunciation of it they want, and once you get the hang of it you can write down any word easily.  I find it hard to write in IPA on my own.  If I write a word they way I think it should be pronounced it is almost always wrong when I check it.  It's kind of mid-way between real English and a phonetic code.


----------



## Ben Jamin

merquiades said:


> I prefer using Merriam-Webster pronunciation symbols for English.  They are easy enough that anyone can use them and they are flexible enough to adapt to different accents.  For example long Ō in _know, bone_ anyone can read the symbol and apply the precise local pronunciation of it they want, and once you get the hang of it you can write down any word easily.  I find it hard to write in IPA on my own.  If I write a word they way I think it should be pronounced it is almost always wrong when I check it.  It's kind of mid-way between real English and a phonetic code.


Where can the definitions of the Merriam-Webster pronunciation symbols be found?


----------



## Red Arrow

Ben Jamin said:


> Where can the definitions of the Merriam-Webster pronunciation symbols be found?


They are defined in that PDF.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Red Arrow said:


> They are defined in that PDF.


Thanks!


----------



## smb6620294

I like to use the Merriam-Webster pronunciation symbol for English. They're simple enough for anyone to use, and they're flexible enough to adapt to different accents. For example, anyone who has known for a long time can read the symbol and use the exact local pronunciation they want, and once you have executed it you can write only one word. I find it difficult to write in IPA myself. When I write a word the way I think it should be pronounced, it's always wrong when I check it. It's like the middle ground between real English and voice code.


----------



## Red Arrow

The Merriam-Webster symbols only work for the English language, and only for phonemic transcription. It can't be used to learn another accent.


----------



## merquiades

Red Arrow said:


> The Merriam-Webster symbols only work for the English language, and only for phonemic transcription. It can't be used to learn another accent.


No, you can't use it for another language, but it wasn't designed for that. It's perfect for English though. It's practical when looking up the pronunciation of words, and when you need to write out something phonetically.
It does give a variety of different pronunciations when applicable.


----------

