Phonemes and Symbols

English uses a set of phonemes that are very common and simple in the IPA, so it generally adopts the IPA symbols to represent its phonemes directly.

Historically, some phonetic symbol systems were widely used, like DJ, KK, Webster. The typical feature is use many common English letters to represent the IPA phonemes to avoid introducing alien symbols, for example, /i/ as [ɪ], /u/ as [ʊ]. However, they are not widely used now and tend to be replaced by the IPA.

The following symbols are exactly the same as the IPA symbols, other than the /r/ sound which is actually [ɹ] in the IPA. [ɹ] still looks very alien so it is not adopted in English dictionaries yet.

Vowels

Symbol (Short Vowels)	IPA (Without Change)
/ɪ/	[ɪ]
/æ/	[æ]
/ʌ/	[ʌ]
/ɒ/	[ɒ]
/ʊ/	[ʊ]
/e/	[e]
/ə/	[ə]

Symbol (Short Vowels)	IPA (Without Change)
/iː/	[iː]
/ɑː/	[ɑː]
/ɔː/	[ɔː]
/uː/	[uː]
/ɜː/	[ɜː]

Symbol (Diphthongs)	IPA (Without Change)
/eɪ/	[eɪ]
/aɪ/	[aɪ]
/ɔɪ/	[ɔɪ]
/əʊ/	[əʊ]
/aʊ/	[aʊ]
/ɪə/	[ɪə]
/eə/	[eə]
/ʊə/	[ʊə]
/aɪə/	[aɪə]
/aʊə/	[aʊə]

Consonants

Symbol	IPA (Without Change)
/p/	[p]
/b/	[b]
/t/	[t]
/d/	[d]
/k/	[k]
/g/	[ɡ]
/f/	[f]
/v/	[v]
/θ/	[θ]
/ð/	[ð]
/s/	[s]
/z/	[z]
/ʃ/	[ʃ]
/ʒ/	[ʒ]
/ tʃ /	[tʃ]
/dʒ/	[dʒ]
/m/	[m]
/n/	[n]
/ŋ/	[ŋ]
/l/	[l]
/r/	[ɹ]
/w/	[w]
/j/	[j]
/h/	[h]