Phonetic Alphabet Tables. Useful for spelling words and names over the phone. I printed this page, cut out the table containing the NATO phonetic alphabet (below), and taped it to the side of my computer monitor when I was a call center help desk technician.

The NATO phonetic alphabet is a Spelling Alphabet, a set of words used instead of letters in oral communication (i.e. over the phone or military radio). Each word ("code word") stands for its initial lette r (alphabetical "symbol").

Phonetic alphabets are used in radio and telephone communications to clarify words by emergency services, the military, aviation industries and anyone who wants to be sure information is communicated accurately.

International Phonetic Alphabet, also called IPA, is an international alphabet used by linguists to accurately represent the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) in human speech. A phoneme is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a given language.

The following list contains all the letters of the phonetic alphabet used in Practical English Usage, with examples of the words in which the sounds they refer to are found. Vowels and diphthongs (double vowels) Consonants. The sign (ˈ) shows stress. See pronunciation: stress and rhythm. © Michael Swan 2016.