PhoTransEdit

PhoTransEdit is a freeware program which allows the user to type normal English text in and then have it transcribed into phonetic text in represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet with options for both British English and American English.

Function

Essentially you type a text into the software, click a button and each of the words is looked up in the appropriate database (AmE or BrE) and then "converted" to phonetic text.

The screenshot shows the software at work. Notice that certain words are not transcribed; this is because the software relies on a database of some 150,000 words and if the word you type isn't in that database, it can't be transcribed.

Accuracy

Although the software does a good job, the output needs to be checked thoroughly before you use it in class as it is may not be 100% correct due to several difficulties.

Homographs

One issue to bear in mind is the way the software handles homographs - that is words spelt the same but with different meanings and pronunciations. For example,

is transcribed as

In actual fact, the stress on august should be on the second syllable.

Strong and Weak Forms

The weak forms are generally used. The forms are always strong at the end of phrases, except if it is a pronoun.

There are exceptions:

• the > ðə before a consonant sound (the boy, the house) and ði before a vowel sound (the egg, the hour)
• to > tə before a consonant sound and tu before a vowel sound
• is > ɪz after a word ending in s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, ʤ. The contracted form s is used after a word ending in p, t, k, f, θ while z is used after one ending in a vowel sound or b, d, g, v, ð, m, n, ŋ, l and AmE

Stress in Compounds

The pronunciation of compound words may differ from the concatenation of their component parts. PhoTransEdit shows the pronunciation of compound words included in its database.

• acid > ˈæsɪd
• acid rain > ˌæsɪd ˈreɪn

Some dictionaries show the symbol (r) in the pronunciation of some words. For example, far /fɑ:(r)/. This means that far will be pronounced /fɑ:r/ when followed by a vowel sound and /fɑ:/ in all other cases.

• far country > fɑ: ˈkʌntri
• far away > fɑ:r əˈweɪ

Use

Bearing in mind the issues above, the software is still a very useful tool for the teacher. It makes preparing phonemic texts much simpler and faster than transcribing by hand and the output can easily be pasted into a word processor, for example, for printing and handing out in class.

Note that although the resulting text can be copied and pasted into Word, by default some characters may not show as many fonts do not support the IPA; you can, however, install and use a font which does support all the characters (see the IPA article for more on this).

See Also

IPA Decode! - a game you can play in class to help students practice the IPA; PhoTransEdit can help with this.

External Links

PhoTransEdit - official website where the software can be downloaded for free.