how many people actually learnt the international phonetic alphabet?

I was taught to *read* in IPA, in about 1970.   well, when I say that, I mean that's what they taught as "reading" in my first grade.   i was so freaking confused and traumatized, they pulled me out of class and tested my IQ.   didn't help that I already knew how to read but nobody knew it, I guess.  

i'm a beginner and should i learn IPA?

Native speakers never learn it. I’ve met exactly one English learner who was familiar with it. It’s entirely too esoteric for most learners. If you’re an educated student of languages, sure, definitely learn it. You’re a working-class economic migrant? I don’t think that’s going to have any traction. I’m totally persuaded informed instruction in pronunciation is valuable for anybody. But I’m not sure IPA is it. ianat. ^i ^am ^not ^a ^teacher

American here. I learned it as a vocal studies student. Many of my friends might be familiar with a symbol or two, such as ə or ç, but I wouldn't expect it of anyone without appropriate context.

Native English speaker (US), taught myself as a teenager but never learned about it in a classroom setting until I started taking linguistics classes in undergrad. Don’t think I personally know anybody who understands it and isn’t somehow involved in the linguistics sphere.

I only even know what it is because I got into making conlangs and needed an easier way to understand all the different sounds, especially when first learning the Russian and Greek alphabets and encountering sounds like γ and χ

I was not formerly taught the IPA. People might recognize it since it's on almost every Wikipedia page, but we don't know how to actually read it. I know enough that I could look up what each letter sounds like, but as an "English is strange" YouTube video enjoyed, I only know like 2 symbols.

I don't know it. I know what a schwa is and what the symbol is and that's it.

I learned it in an auditioned children's choir when I was in fifth grade because my choir director was using it to help us with foreign-language songs.  My next official interaction with it was in my first year of undergrad in my intro to linguistics class.  I have never seen it in a regular, non-specialized classroom setting, and I'm from the US.

I did, in my linguistics bachelor's degree

Nope. Never taught it, never learned it. To me, it's a technical thing that linguists use. Nevertheless, since being on this sub, I'm aware that English learners in some countries seem to know it.

Most people's only exposure to it is through Wikipedia. I've never heard of anyone learning it in school before college, and then only if they're getting a degree where it's relevant.

I only learned it for linguistics class and general interest in languages. I’d bet not many native English speakers will just know it but it is very helpful for marking sounds that your language doesn’t have.

I learned it as part of my German studies degree. It never came up in English class

I learnt it in linguistics at uni and tesol. There's no reason for native English speakers to learn it unless they are learning another language that has a very deep and complex orthography, which not many do.

Classical singers are also very likely to learn it

I was never taught about it in school and only learned it later for fun. As far as people knowing it in general, I know very few people in the US that can actually read IPA, and almost all of them, if not all of them, learned it outside of high school, either out of a passive interest of linguistics or from language-related college courses.

I needed to learn it for a very rigorous French Phonetics course as an undergrad. It really was helpful. Wish I'd retained everything.

I did in my French Linguistics studies (university).

I know it, but only because I have degrees in linguistics and speech-language pathology. I wish more people knew it, though! It definitely would make foreign language classes easier.

But why would you learn it as a native speaker? You already know your own array of sounds in your accent/dialect, so what would it serve? Of course you need some aural phonemic awareness when you are first learning to read, but of course that has to be aural as you can't read yet!

Finnish here. The only place these come across is when using a dictionary like the Collins Cobuild. I don't think anyone ever taught these for me, but you kinda pick them up a little bit if you use the dictionaries.

Not only did I not learn it, the first I'd heard of it was this sub. I'm sure I saw it on Wikipedia but didn't know what it was and didn't look into it

Indonesian ESL speaker here, it's not part of the curriculum for us either. I only learned it because I took English Literature for my Bachelor's and I had a Phonetics class

I learnt it because we had a CB radio when I was a kid. My dad was a member of the ROC. Later on I used it in my job when relaying post codes over the telephone to delivery companies. Now I use it because I live in Denmark and my pronunciation of Danish words is shocking!

It’s more of a linguistics or other technical field thing. Regular students don’t learn it.

I did my undergrad in linguistics, so I learned to use it, but i still can't sight-read it without a chart in front of me. Never came up during elementary or high school (despite taking four languages in HS besides English).

I only learned it as I was a linguistics major in college. I don’t think it’s commonly known

I learnt it as an English teacher.

IPA isn't something you "learn" like you would the alphabet. There are 300-odd symbols, and only a small subset of them are used in any given language. English uses somewhere between 40-60, for example, and quite a few of those symbols represent sounds that are represented by other symbols in English. For example: /i/ in IPA: "wheel" /e/ in IPA: "lake" I suspect that IPA might be more useful in languages whose symbols more closely line up with their equivalent IPA symbols. For my part, I had a rough idea of it from reading the dictionary, but until I took a linguistics course, I didn't know precisely what each symbol sounded like. And I still don't know the vast majority of the symbols: I don't use 3/4 of them in my speech.

Back when...

I know a few sounds, but not a ton. Although I do know the entire NATO phonetic alphabet...

I did learn it at the insistence of one of my high school English teachers, and I’m glad I did because it makes language learning a LOT easier

its only use for someone who isn't interested in phonetics/linguistics etc is to be able to look up the pronunciation of words you don't know, and now the Internet has actual playable recordings of lots of words to learn from. there is very little reason for anyone to learn IPA otherwise

It is not normal to know it by heart unless you're in some linguistics-related area of study.

My wife is a linguist. She knows it. I’ve never really had a need to know it, I can just look up whatever specific sound I need to know for language learning.

It’s used to teach language beyond a certain level. It’s especially useful for English since the spelling is so ambiguous.

Ironically the anglosphere needs it most because English has irregular spelling and various accents.

It’s pretty useful for me when learning French. I didn’t bother memorizing every sound on it, but it’s sure helpful to know the French and English ones so I can recognize which French sounds are just like English and which are different. This informs me which French sounds I need to pay special attention to so my ear can start to recognize it and my mouth can start to produce it.

I only know one person IRL who learned it and they learned it through some high level linguistics classes in college. The average person has no need for it. In fact, when that person mention knowing "the Phonetic Alphabet," we had a moment of confusion when I said that I knew it too, before it became clear that they meant the International Phonetic Alphabet, and I meant the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. I see more practical application for knowing the latter for the average person.

Very few English-speakers learn IPA in school, except for linguists and (this may come as a surprise) some actors (and other vocal performers) - many acting programs teach IPA for accent work, but also many actors aren't formally trained, so while a lot of actors know IPA, a lot of them *don't*.

I believe it was made for people who don't speak english so they can learn how to pronounce the words correctly. its hard to learn the ipa at the beginning but its very useful even for native speakers

I've taken college level linguistics (just 101) and didn't learn it

non native here. We were taught a bit of KK phonetic transcription in school. It has a lot of similarities with IPA. It helps when you’re learning new vocabulary to know how to pronounce the word. Phonics can only take you that far if you aren’t in an English speaking environment. For older generation, they learned a lot of KK and even had to learn how to write the symbols next to the words…Glad we no longer do that anymore

I've known it since I was in middle school and I've heard every phonetic sound.

I learned the IPA for English and French in school as a part of the curriculum and later at uni as I was studying non-european languages. Back then there were no online dictionaries with audio and the IPA was the only way to learn how to pronounce a new word. Even now it's extremely helpful as dictionaries with audio are limited to the most spoken languages only

I am learning it but it's so hard for me, I can find the right tongue position in my mouth to pronoun vowels.

I only learned it when I became a teacher. Thanks to AI, a lot of doors opened for me. I ask ChatGPT to transcribe words from other languages into IPA so I can pronounce them properly. Because of this, I realized that Japanese and Polish words aren't so difficult to pronounce.

In Catalonia they teach the IPA at high school, specifically the IPA letters that represent the phonemes of Catalan

This question comes up here fairly often! Most native English speakers probably don't even know what the IPA *is*, some people are *aware* of it as the [funky notation in dictionary pages](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT6Jy8JuHP8-eE4B37PuQ18HEjlNYbCQGawfvgQVPa9OaVDIu1D1kzLa5k&s=10)(and may even know a few symbols), but very very very few people actually learn or use it unless they're studying linguistics or something.

I have a print out of it at my work desk, I rarely need to use it so I've never memorised it but that paper has proved handy on occasion lol

I learnt it because I work in a car sales business. It’s extremely useful for chassis numbers and registration numbers etc. I wasn’t taught it at school though. We did have a few lessons on semaphore though, I’d forgotten about that for some reason until now!

I went to school in Finland and I learned the phonetic alphabet while learning English. I don't think all the symbols were systematically teached, but our books used phonetic alphabet to describe the pronounciation and and some sounds that don't exist in Finnish were teached with the symbols.

Never learned it in English class in Ireland, or in Irish or French class for that matter.

I never learned it at school or university, but I was forced to learn it as a trainee solicitor due to the frequency of phonecalls and the importance of accurately giving and taking details.

I (from Germany) remember that we once had at lesson about it in English class.

In Japan, it is very common in Highschool which is suprising. I believe in other parts they just focus on sounds phonetics but it has limitation.

We use it a lot in the UK when we are spelling things out - I never used to know it, but after many a phone call of spelling out my last name (it’s long) and postcode, I know it now.

I haven't "learned it" in the same way that I've learned the English alphabet, but I understand how it works and I can use it if I look at the IPA charts.

I think everybody.

Learned it in a linguistics undergrad class in uni, back in the day. It's been helpful when trying to read some older historical documents, and when looking at pronunciation of new or unusual words, especially those borrowed from other languages.

I'm Brazilian, had some formal classes of English and never was introduced to the IPA. I learnt it myself and haven't encountered many Brazilians who know it. I find it very useful nonetheless.

I know it by heart. I'm also a linguistics major. Besides a few limited applications nobody learns it

American here, I learned it but only because I took a linguistics class in college

I learned it while in the military. I worked in law enforcement, and we learned it in the police academy.

I only learned it when I worked in IT for a year and used it when saying serial numbers to colleagues or engineers. Had a piece of paper stuck on my desk the whole time