English Pronunciation

Consonants

The following have their usual English values: b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, and z.  Other symbols are used as follows:

Vowels

^ə before /l/, /m/, or /n/ indicates that the syllable may be realized with a syllabic l, m, or n, rather than with a vowel and a consonant, e.g. /'bʌt^ən/ rather than /'bʌtən/.

(r) indicates an r that is sometimes sounded when a vowel follows, as in drawer, cha-chaing.

Stress

The mark ' before a syllable indicates that it is stressed.  Secondary stress is shown by the mark ˌ before a syllable.

Foreign pronunciations

Foreign words and phrases, whether naturalized or not, are always given an anglicized pronunciation.  The anglicized pronunciation represents the normal pronunciation used by native speakers of standard English when using the word in an English context. However, it is difficult to show the typical pronunciation of some commonly used French words by means of standard English vowel symbols, and for that reason the following nasalized vowels have been used: