All the words in Gramle are English words produced by a male speaker of English from the MALD dataset (Tucker et al., 2019). Transcriptions are mostly phonemic and are based on a general American English dialect using the CMU-dictionary transcriptions. These have been converted into the International Phonetic Alphabet for the purposes of Gramle. The transcriptions include the alveolar tap /ɾ/ which is an allophonic variant of /t/ and /d/ in North American English.
If you are new to transcription and spectrograms there is a brief introduction to the transcription system below. To learn more about reading spectrograms you can check out Rob Hagiwara’s page on reading spectrograms.
Consonants
| Symbol | Voice – Place – Manner | Keywords |
| p | voiceless bilabial stop | pie, sleepy, tip |
| b | voiced bilabial stop | buy, about, dab |
| t | voiceless alveolar stop | tie, atop, pat |
| d | voiced alveolar stop | dim, adore, lad |
| k | voiceless velar stop | kill, locker, sack |
| g | voiced velar stop | gill, logger, pig |
| ɾ | voiced alveolar tap | butter, adder |
| f | voiceless labiodental fricative | fill, coffee, if |
| v | voiced labiodental fricative | vet, movie, stove |
| θ | voiceless dental fricative | thing, ether, both |
| ð | voiced dental fricative | this, either, breathe |
| s | voiceless alveolar fricative | see, fussy, mess |
| z | voiced alveolar fricative | zoo, maze, Oz |
| ʃ | voiceless postalveolar fricative | shoe, bishop, ash |
| ʒ | voiced postalveolar fricative | ZsaZsa, azure, rouge |
| t͡ʃ | voiceless postalveolar affricate | church, hatchet |
| d͡ʒ | voiceled postalveolar affricate | judge, badger |
| m | (voiced) bilabial nasal | mouse, amo, aim |
| n | (voiced) alveolar nasal | no, any, on |
| ŋ | (voiced) velar nasal | __, singer, wing |
| l | (voiced) alveolar lateral (approximant) | lousy, solo, bull |
| ɹ | (voiced) retroflex approximant | ring, around, or |
| j | (voiced) palatal approximant | yell, union, __ |
| w | (voiced) labial-velar approximant | we, tower, __ |
| h | voiceless glottal fricative | how, ahoy, __ |
Vowels
| Symbol | (T)HAR | Keywords |
| i | (tns) high front unrounded | tea, see |
| ɪ | (lax) high front unrounded | tip, sing |
| e͡ɪ | (tns) mid front unrounded | pay, deign |
| ɛ | (lax) mid front unrounded | pet, head |
| æ | (lax?) low front unrounded | pat, dad |
| ɑ | (tns) low back unrounded | calm, pot |
| o͡ʊ | (tns) mid back rounded | toe, row |
| ʊ | (lax) high back rounded | put, foot |
| u | (tns) high back rounded | food, prune |
| ʌ | (lax) mid central unrounded | but, sung |
| ə | (lax) mid central unr | above |
| a͡ɪ | /a/ (tns) low central unrounded | buy, bite |
| a͡ʊ | cow, house | |
| ɔ͡ɪ | /ɔ/ (tns) mid back rounded | boy |
| ɝ | stressed rhoticized vowel | bird, curry |
| ɚ | unstressed rhoticized vowel | butter |