Welcome! Here’s how to use the exercises available on LearningWithTsing.com.
In this exercise, you’ll practice reading and decoding IPA symbols by writing complete sentences. You’ll see a series of IPA transcriptions that form a sentence, and your task is to figure out what each word is and write the complete sentence in regular English spelling.
Instructions:
- Look at the IPA Transcription: You’ll see a sentence written entirely in IPA symbols, like this:
/ðə bɜːd ɪz ˈsɪŋɪŋ ɪn ðə triː/ - Refer to the Phonetic Chart: Use your Reference Words chart to help identify each phoneme and decode each word.
- Decode Each Word: Work through the transcription word by word. Sound out each IPA symbol to figure out what word it represents.
- Write the Complete Sentence: Once you’ve decoded all the words, write the sentence in normal English spelling.
- Use Context Clues: As you decode the words, the emerging sentence meaning will help confirm you’re on the right track. If the sentence makes sense, you’re probably reading the IPA correctly!
Learning Goals:
Primary Goal: Strengthen your IPA reading skills by decoding complete phonetic transcriptions into written English.
Secondary Goal: Practice recognizing words in sentence context, which helps you develop natural language intuition and grammar awareness.
How They Work Together: As you decode the IPA, the sentence context helps you confirm your answers—when the words form a meaningful sentence, it reinforces that you’ve read the phonetics correctly. This two-way reinforcement makes learning faster and more effective!
Example:
IPA Transcription:
/aɪ sɔː ə bɜːd ˈflaɪɪŋ ˈəʊvə ðə leɪk/
Your Answer:
I saw a bird flying over the lake.
Tips:
- Decode one word at a time—don’t try to read the whole sentence at once
- Pay attention to word boundaries (spaces in the IPA)
- Use sentence context to help with tricky words
- Some sounds can be spelled different ways—context will help you choose correctly
- Practice regularly, and you’ll get faster at recognizing IPA patterns!