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About this tool
Convert English text into International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions with stress marks, per-word breakdown, and audio playback.
Paste English text and this tool transcribes it into the International Phonetic Alphabet, matching each word against a built-in dictionary of roughly 450 common words in General American pronunciation and falling back to a letter-pattern estimate for anything outside it. Every word is shown individually with its transcription and labelled as a dictionary match or an estimate, and a counter tells you how many of each the passage produced. A speech button reads the original text aloud through your browser's en-US voice so you can hear it alongside the symbols.
Open Text to IPA Pronunciation on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Type or paste English into the 'English Text' box, or press 'Load sample' for a ready sentence.
Press 'Listen to text' to hear it in an en-US voice, and read the 'Word-by-word breakdown' where rule-estimated words are tagged 'est.'
Check the 'Dictionary matches' and 'Estimated' counts, then Copy the IPA string or press Save to download ipa-transcription.txt.
Each word is flagged as a dictionary match or an estimate, and the totals are shown, so you know exactly which parts of a transcription to double-check.
The per-word breakdown pairs every original word with its transcription, which is what you need for study rather than one continuous IPA string.
Browser speech synthesis reads the text back in a US English voice at 90 percent speed so the symbols and the sound arrive together.
General American, with the dictionary written as a General American and Received Pronunciation hybrid where the two agree. That means rhotic forms — 'her' is transcribed with an r, as hɜr — so British RP users should expect differences in exactly those r-coloured vowels.
It is transcribed by rule and marked as estimated in amber. The fallback maps digraphs like ch to tʃ, sh to ʃ, th to θ and ph to f, applies simple vowel rules, and drops a final silent e — good enough to read, but not a substitute for a full pronouncing dictionary on unusual or borrowed words.
No. The transcriptions give the segments only, without the primary stress mark ˈ or the secondary mark ˌ that a full dictionary entry would carry. For multi-syllable words you will need to add stress yourself from a reference source.
Yes — copy the full IPA string to the clipboard, or download it as ipa-transcription.txt. Punctuation and spacing from your original text are preserved in that output, so the transcription lines up with the sentence you pasted.