So I have written several activities now about the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and some of you might wonder: What is so important about the IPA? Why do we need the IPA? There are many reasons for having it and I'll explain a few of them now.

There are different reasons that different people learn the IPA. For those in the field of Linguistics, like myself, it is helpful for understanding historical, morphological (changing do to grammar and such), phonological changes, amongst other things. In historical terms, we can see what sounds used to exist in our language and others. We can find these things out from rhyming poetry and from linguists of the past. In morphological terms we can figure out why the normal endings for plural and the third person singular goes from -s or -es can be either /s/ /z/ or /əz/. This also involves different affixes (an affix is something that attaches to a word, whether it be a suffix, prefix, or infix), stem changes, amongst some other things (something for another article or activity?). Phonological reasons involve the way sounds change in certain environments. Certain sounds change when around other sounds, like how /t/ sometimes becomes /tʃ/ when around an /ɹ/ in words like tree, trunk, etc.

Now, why does all of this matter to non-linguists? Well, this can help us learn proper pronunciation, and if you master the tones, accent of the language you learning. People will try to correct your pronunciation sometimes, but if you don't understand how you are doing it wrong, how can you correct it? People say it's almost impossible to lose your accent in another language, though I don't think I believe that, it doesn't mean you can't try your hardest to get there. This also helps actors if they want to learn accents and to realize their own. I know that has helped me in cases. There are some languages that make distinctions that we don't. The Chinese <zh> and <j> are different (/tʂ/ and /tɕ/) but they both sound similar to /tʃ/ to English speakers, and this can cause some confusion.

I would say that if you want to work on perfecting your pronunciation, you could check it out. My warning is that you might become more aware of your own accent and pronunciation, and you still might not be perfect at it. It takes time, it took me half a year to figure all the vowels out in my head. The following are my activities in IPA teaching how to use it:

Consonants: Voicing and Introduction

Consonants: The Sounds of English

Vowels: The Sounds of English

Exercises in English

The Vowels Not in English

The Consonants Not in English

Effects on Sounds

Timothy