Phoneme 音位

yīnwèi · from Greek

What is a phoneme?

A phoneme is the smallest sound unit that can change meaning in a particular language, such as /p/ vs /b/ in English pat and bat.

Phonemes are language-specific: English treats l and r as different phonemes, while Japanese and Korean do not. A sound that is a separate phoneme in one language can be just a variant (allophone) in another, which is the root of many accent problems.

Examples

English /l/ vs /r/ (light, right); Mandarin /p/ vs /pʰ/ (b vs p); Japanese ら ra covers both l and r for English ears

Kungfucius says: Your brain spent childhood deleting the sounds it did not need. Now you have to reinstall them.