Sounds of Speech™

University of Iowa Research Foundation

About this app

New Version (February 2016) includes:
- New improved interface (including Tablet improvements)
- English Dictionary search
- Text translations for: Spanish, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) (English version only)

Future updates will contain a speech anatomy section.

This application was originally designed at the University of Iowa to help students learning how the sounds of different languages are produced. Since its production, it has become a milestone for phonetics teaching tools around the globe.


Sounds of Speech™ provides a comprehensive understanding of how, physiologically, each of the speech sounds of American English is formed. It includes animations, videos, and audio samples that describe the essential features of each of the consonants and vowels of American English. Sounds of Speech™ is especially useful for students studying English as a second language. Features include:

- A real-time animated articulatory diagram for each consonant and vowel.
- An annotated step-by-step description of how each speech sound is produced.
- Facial view video (not available for Android 2.2 and 2.3) and audio samples for each speech sound.
- Navigation that reflects the classification of consonants by manner, place or voicing and of vowels by tongue position.
- An interactive diagram of the articulatory anatomy.
- Ability to see and hear native speakers pronounce sound for each consonant and vowel.

Please send any questions or issues to [e-mail].

(If you bought the version prior to Jan 2nd 2014 and would like an update to the newest version please contact us at [e-mail], thank you and we apologize for the inconvenience )

Ratings and reviews

This app is a great tool for learning English and for learning the International Phonetic Alphabet. I came here after enjoying the Sounds of Speech website for years. I'd love to see some color added to the app. It seems silly, but the website had great aesthetics, and this one looks like they skimped on design. Adding a little color would help visually distinguish the categories from subcategories of phonemes.

It was very good in the website where you could get a comprehensive view of all the phonetic aspects with one glance, here the sectioning of the content does not allow that, you have to go from one part to the other to search examples, to make the connections. Please, refine this and make the one comprehensive look, with local, manner and examples all together.

Terrible. This app doesn't compare to the website I used to use some years ago. It used to be excellent, and it explained many aspects such as voice, manner and place of articulation. It explained all the consonants and vowels. I don't like its new layout. It's not useful. Now it is just a few examples. Can you explain me what happened with the original one?

What's new

Updates under the hood to keep the app running on Android!