Eckher IPA to Speech: Type /həˈloʊ/ and listen

Every language comes with a finite set of phonemes—units of speech that help distinguish word pairs such as man vs. men and fill vs. feel. These phonemes are commonly expressed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which establishes a universal system for representing speech sounds. For example, man is normally transcribed as /ˈmæn/ using IPA-based phonemes.

Understanding the phonemic system of a language and its representations in IPA is essential in many situations. For example, it helps foreign language students improve their pronunciation and allows phoneticians to communicate speech sounds in writing. Learning IPA symbols, however, is not an easy task, especially given that many pronunciation systems employ slightly different conventions for representing phonemes in IPA.

What is Eckher IPA to Speech?

Eckher IPA to Speech is an online tool for composing speech audio from IPA transcriptions that supports multiple spoken languages. An interactive "IPA studio", it allows users to experiment with writing their own IPA pronunciations and instantly "preview" those transcriptions as speech audios generated using the IPA-to-speech technology.

How to use Eckher IPA to Speech?

Once you've selected the target language and entered the phonetic transcription, press "Listen" to play the generated audio pronunciation.

To facilitate the entering of IPA phonemes for different languages, a virtual phonetic keyboard is displayed under the IPA input. This keyboard adjusts accordingly to only display the phonemes that are supported by the currently selected language and IPA-to-speech engine.