A great resource for the IPA

One of the best tools a linguist uses is the International Phonetic Alphabet, however learning it can feel daunting. I have historically referred students to the wikipedia page on the IPA, because it has links to individual pages for each sound, with descriptions of how the sound is produced, and audio recordings.

Now, there's another tool: an interactive IPA chart with a cross-sectional MRI so you can see the position of the tongue, lips, velum, etc. while a sound is being produced.

It's courtesy of the UCLA Speech Production and Articulation Knowledge Group, and can be found here.

One caveat: of the five available speakers, John Esling is the only one who pronounces the alveolar click /!/ correctly. Everything else seems to be great across all speakers.

Enjoy!

 

/