Orthography and Pronunciation
The Esperanto alphabet is nearly phonemic and coincides closely to the International Phonetic Alphabet. The letters, along with the IPA and nearest English equivalent of their principal variant, are,
| Consonants | Vowels & diphthongs | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letter | English | IPA | Letter | English | IPA | ||
| b | b | a | spa | ||||
| c | ts | e | bet | ||||
| ĉ | ch | i | machine | ||||
| d | d | o | war | ||||
| f | f | u | rude | ||||
| g | go | ||||||
| ĝ | gem | aj | bye | ||||
| h | h | aŭ | now | ||||
| ĥ | loch | ej | bay | ||||
| j | y, hallelujah | eŭ | * | ||||
| ĵ | pleasure | oj | boy | ||||
| k | k | uj | phooey | ||||
| l | l | (as one syllable) | |||||
| m | m | *Something similar to eŭ can be heard in exaggerated mimicry – as delivered by such American comedians as Carol Burnett – of the British pronunciation of the word "oh" Ŭ is a consonant in foreign names, |
|||||
| n | n | ||||||
| p | p | ||||||
| r | r (rolled) | ||||||
| s | s | ||||||
| ŝ | sh | ||||||
| t | t | ||||||
| v | v | ||||||
| z | z | ||||||
Read more about this topic: Esperanto Phonology