Convert English text to IPA, in American or British pronunciation
This IPA phonetic converter turns English words and sentences into the International Phonetic Alphabet — cat becomes /kæt/, night becomes /naɪt/ — in General American or British Received Pronunciation (RP), or both side by side. A word-by-word table shows each transcription with its syllable count, and a reverse mode turns IPA back into an easy respelling such as BYOO-tih-fuhl.
Language learners checking a pronunciation, teachers preparing phonics or ESL worksheets, linguistics students practising transcription, and writers who want to show readers how a word sounds can all use it. Because English spelling is famously irregular, seeing the sounds written plainly is often the quickest way to understand a word.
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How to use the IPA Phonetic Converter
- Leave the direction on English → IPA and type or paste text into the box.
- Choose an Accent: General American, British (RP) or Both.
- Read the transcription between slashes, and use Stress marks to show or hide ˈ and ˌ.
- Check the Word by word table for each word in both accents, its syllables, and whether it came from the exception table or the rules.
- For the reverse, choose IPA → respelling, paste IPA (or tap the symbol buttons) and read the respelling, where the stressed syllable is in capitals.
- Press Copy to copy the result, or Use as input to send it the other way.
IPA Phonetic Converter features
Two accents
General American keeps the r in car /kɑr/ and uses ɚ and ɝ; RP drops it (/kɑː/), uses long-vowel marks and gives bath, dance and ask the ɑː vowel.
Stress and syllables
Primary and secondary stress are placed before the stressed syllable, following IPA convention, and one-syllable words are left unmarked.
Word-by-word table
Every distinct word is listed with both transcriptions, its syllable count and the source of its pronunciation.
Reverse respelling
IPA is turned into a plain respelling (ʃ → sh, θ → th, eɪ → ay) with the stressed syllable capitalised, and a symbol keyboard helps you type IPA.
Clear about accuracy
Rules plus a table of about 1,900 irregular words means common words come out right, while rare words and names are an educated guess — the table tells you which is which.
How the conversion works
There is no pronunciation dictionary here. Each word passes through English letter-to-sound rules modelled on the US Naval Research Laboratory rules (Elovitz and colleagues, 1976): context rules such as “c before e, i or y sounds like s”, “igh is /aɪ/”, “tion is /ʃən/”. Stress is guessed from suffixes (-tion, -ic and -ity pull stress to the syllable before them), prefixes (re-, de-, con- usually stay unstressed in verbs) and syllable weight, and unstressed vowels are reduced to schwa /ə/.
A hand-written table of about 1,900 common irregular words (one, said, women, colonel, Wednesday) overrides the rules, and plurals and past tenses are built from their stems. The result is a broad phonemic transcription: it shows the sounds that distinguish words, not details such as the flapped t in American water or the glottal stop in some British speech.
American and British IPA compared
| Word | General American | British RP | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| car | /kɑr/ | /kɑː/ | RP drops r before a consonant or pause |
| water | /ˈwɔtɚ/ | /ˈwɔːtə/ | r-coloured schwa vs plain schwa |
| go | /ɡoʊ/ | /ɡəʊ/ | GOAT vowel |
| lot | /lɑt/ | /lɒt/ | RP keeps a rounded short o |
| dance | /dæns/ | /dɑːns/ | BATH words |
| near | /nɪr/ | /nɪə/ | centring diphthongs in RP |
Getting the most accurate transcription
- Spell words normally; the rules expect standard English spelling, not text-speak.
- Words with two pronunciations (read, live, record) get one fixed form — check the word table.
- For names and very new words, treat the output as a starting point and compare it with a dictionary.
- To count beats rather than sounds use the Syllable Counter; to find words that share a sound, the Rhyming Dictionary; to hear text spoken, Text to Speech.
IPA Phonetic Converter FAQ
How do I convert English to IPA?
Type or paste your text with the direction set to English → IPA and choose an accent. The IPA transcription appears instantly between slashes, with a word-by-word table below.
Is this IPA converter accurate?
For common words, yes — they are either covered by the exception table or follow regular spelling patterns. Uncommon words, names and borrowings are estimated by rules and can be wrong, which is why every word shows its source.
What is the difference between /slashes/ and [brackets]?
Slashes mark a phonemic transcription (the sounds that change meaning); square brackets mark a phonetic one with extra detail. This tool produces phonemic transcriptions, so it uses slashes.
Can it convert IPA back to English?
It turns IPA into an approximate respelling — /ˈbjuːtɪfəl/ becomes BYOO-tih-fuhl — but it cannot guess the original spelling, because many spellings share a sound.
Which British accent is used?
Received Pronunciation, the reference accent of most British dictionaries, with modern conventions such as /e/ for the DRESS vowel and /əʊ/ for GOAT.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser.