English to IPA translator

Type or paste English and each word is written in the International Phonetic Alphabet, with ˈ before the syllable that carries the main stress and ˌ before a secondary stress. Words with more than one pronunciation, like tomato or read, list the others in the steps. Words the dictionary doesn't know are left as written between asterisks.

The dictionary is downloaded from this site the first time you type, as one file, about 700 KB. The words you look up are never sent anywhere.

The words come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, a free list of about 126,000 English words and their pronunciations kept by Carnegie Mellon University for speech technology. It describes General American, so it shows the r in car (kɑɹ) and the merged vowels of many American accents, which British transcriptions write differently.

The dictionary writes sounds in ARPAbet, a code made of capital letters, and this page turns each into its IPA symbol: AA becomes ɑ, DH becomes ð, and so on. Its unstressed weak vowels become ə and ɚ, as in most dictionaries.

Pronunciation in running speech changes from word to word: the is often ðə before a consonant and ði before a vowel, and in fast speech many sounds blur. This tool gives each word as it's said on its own. It also can't tell which read you mean (ɹɛd or ɹid), so check the steps when a word has more than one.