PhoTransEdit is a free Windows tool created to make typing English transcriptions easier. It is based on a database that contains more than 150000 words and their corresponding phonemic transcriptions.
Automatic phonemic transcription. Get an automatic draft phonemic transcription of a text. Broad transcriptions in British English (RP Received Pronunciation) and American English (GA General American) are available.
Sample image 1. Phonemic transcription of the text 'type the text you want to transcribe'
Phonetic keyboard. Edit or create transcriptions. You can click on the buttons or type its corresponding shortcut (shown in blue below each button).
Sample image 2. Phonetic keyboard
To add other IPA Symbols you just have to click on the button
Sample image 3. Additional IPA Symbols
The IPA Symbols recently used in the IPA Symbols dialog (image 3) are kept in the main menu
Sample image 4. Additional IPA Symbols recently used
You can choose to keep/remove blank spaces, stress, the important punctuation and syllabic consonants from the resulting transcription
Sample image 5. Keep/remove blank spaces, stress, the important punctuation and syllabic consonants
X-SAMPA. Export the transcription to X-SAMPA, which is a computer-coding for the entire set of IPA symbols. This will allow you, among other things, to use the IPA-SAM phonetic fonts. You just have to export the transcription to X-SAMPA, paste the output into a word processor and select the IPA-SAM phonetic font you want to use.
Sample image 6. X-SAMPA import/export
You can also import an X-SAMPA text into the editor.
HTML. Get a translation of the IPA symbols into HTML code numbers. You can do this using either decimal or hexadecimal numbers. These code numbers allow you to show IPA symbols in your HTML pages. The browser will render these with the correct IPA symbols, always provided an appropriate font is available. For more information about how to display IPA Symbols on your web browser, see 'The International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode' by John Wells.
Sample image 7. HTML conversion using decimal numbers
Sample image 8. HTML conversion using hexadecimal numbers
You can also import HTML code numbers into the editor.
You can also import Unicode Braille IPA symbols into the editor.
Change font properties. You can set different font face and font size and also make the text bold, italic or underline.
Sample image 10. Font properties
Rhymes. You can type in a word and find its rhymes. Three types of rhyme are available:
Perfect rhyme. Words that are pronounced identically from the vowel in their stressed syllable to the end.
Assonance. Words must have identical vowel sounds in their final syllables.
Alliteration. Words with beginning rhyme have the same initial consonant sound.
Sample image 11. Rhyming words
You can also use wildcards to find words with similar, but not exactly the same, sound
Sample image 12. Rhyming sounds
Statistics. Get the number of times a sound is found in a transcription.
Added the posibility to export/import a transcription to/from IPA Braille
Settings (BrE or AmE transcription, font selected, keep spaces, ...) are kept for following uses of PhoTransEdit.
Syllabic consonants are shown (suggestion by David Lee).
The symbol | is used to mark a point a point where a speaker might introduce a brief pause.
Two-symbol sequences for symbols tʃ and dʒ (suggestion by David Lee).
Now all Unicode fonts installed in your computer can be used.
The database has been improved considerably (inestimable contribution by Timothy Montler) allowing American English transcriptions.
Added the posibility to search rhymes using wild cards (suggestion by David Brett).
Improved the support of genitives (suggestion by Wang Songshan).
Added the posibility to export/import HTML hexadecimal code numbers.
1.4
Jul09
Not available anymore
Added the posibility to import/export X-SAMPA transcriptions (suggestion by David Brett).
Conversion of the first 3000 roman numbers (I, II, III, ...) has been included (suggestion by Wang Songshan).
Added the posibility to keep important punctuation in output transcription (suggestion by Azman Sholihin).
The marks ´ (as well as ') can be both used in apostrophes (suggestion by Wang Songshan).
1.3
Apr09
Not available anymore
Added the posibility to find English words that rhyme with another word. The database has been improved to take into account weak and strong forms of function words (suggestion by Ana López).
1.2
Feb09
Not available anymore
The database has been improved considerably (inestimable contribution by 'Glober Trotter').Improved the editor to write phonetic transcriptions quicker (suggestion by David Powell). Fixed a bug that prevented users from using other programs while PhoTransEdit was transcribing long texts (reported by Fisch Fahrrad). Changes in the user interface.
1.1
Dec08
Not available anymore
Improved the way to type additional IPA Symbols. Added the posibility to set the font and font size and also to make the text bold, italic or underline.
1.0
Sep08
Not available anymore
PhoTransEdit Database
PhoTransEdit Database is a compilation of words and their corresponding phonetic transcriptions. For many of the words, the source of the phonetic transcription is unknown and diverse. As many derived words (plurals, gerunds, etc.) were loaded using automated processings, it is possible to find mistakes. The database was improved considerably in version 2.0 (inestimable contribution by 'Glober Trotter') and in version 3.0 (inestimable contribution by Timothy Montler) . You can check transcriptions with the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary by J C Wells or with any of the online dictionaries shown in the Links section.
Version
Date
Words
Download
3.1
Jan10
157370
This version of the database is included in the setup program version 1.6
3.0
Sep09
157370
This version of the database is included in the setup program version 1.5
2.2
Jul09
80600
This version of the database is included in the setup program version 1.4
2.1
Apr09
77633
This version of the database is included in the setup program version 1.3
2.0
Feb09
77636
This version of the database is included in the setup program version 1.2
1.2
Dec08
64577
This version of the database is included in the setup program version 1.1
1.1
Sep08
64529
This version of the database is included in the setup program version 1.0
How does the automatic phonemic transcription work?
The draft phonemic transcription is basically obtained by linking the phonemic transcription of the words in isolation. However, you have to take the following into account:
Words not found in the database are left as they are, but between '<' and '>' characters.
getafe > <getafe>
The following symbols are omited from the original text: ':', '?', '!', '(' and ')'
how are you? > haʊ ə ju
The tool is not case-sensitive. It doesn't distinguish lower case from upper case. Therefore, "abc" is not considered different from "ABC".
abc > ˌeɪbi:ˈsi:
ABC > ˌeɪbi:ˈsi:
Homographs. Some homographs, words with same spelling, have different pronunciations. PhoTransEdit shows different pronunciations if the word is recognised as an homograph in the database. To distinguish the right pronunciation the words around the homograph are used.
a story > ə ˈstɔ:ri
letter a > ˈletər eɪ
an articulate speaker > ən ɑ:ˈtɪkjʊlət ˈspi:kə
to articulate an idea > tu: ɑ:ˈtɪkjuleɪt ən aɪˈdɪə
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.
I found some > aɪv faʊnd sʌm
I found some coins > aɪv faʊnd səm koɪnz
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 r
Do not include a carriage return or a full stop in the middle of a sentence. They are considered the beginning of a new sentence.
Note: Weak and strong forms are determined by stress, intonation and phonetic context, therefore it is difficult to make up an automated rule that works for all cases.
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
Numbers. Numbers are converted into words and then transcribed.
101 > wʌn ˈhʌndrəd ənd wʌn
XXIV > ˈtwentɪ fɔːr
These rules are only followed by the words included in the database. Let me know of any homograph or any other word not recognised.
You can help to improve this tool in two different ways:
Sending me an e-mail. Send an e-mail to photransedit@gmail.com with your comments, suggestions, corrections, mistakes in the transcription of words, etc
Adding/correcting the pronunciation of word through PhoTransEdit. Follow the steps shown on the main window when the button 'update db' is clicked:
Sample image 14. How to help to improve the database
PhoTransEdit was created by a programmer and student of English from Getafe (Spain).
The unique visitors counter and the statistics help me to have information about the visitors of this page. Seeing a growing number of visitors is motivating. Therefore, if you want to help the number of visitors to grow, you can add a link to this page in your site or send an email to the people you think might be interested in it.
However, statistics does not give information about the usage of the tool. If you are using PhoTransEdit, please send your comments and suggestions to photransedit@gmail.com. Thanks in advance.
