International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a standardized system used to represent the sounds of spoken language. Each symbol corresponds to a specific sound, or phoneme, found in various languages, allowing linguists, language learners, and anyone interested in pronunciation to accurately convey how words are spoken. For instance, the IPA can help distinguish between similar sounds in different languages or dialects. By using the IPA, one can read and pronounce words correctly without needing to understand the language itself, making it an invaluable tool in linguistics, language teaching, and communication.