Pronunciation

The Pronunciation button in the toolbar shows how each word sounds, in small text under the word. Languages in the Latin alphabet show IPA. Languages in another alphabet can show the word in Latin letters (Romanized) or in IPA.

Turn pronunciation on or off

1. In the reader’s toolbar, choose Pronunciation. It’s the icon just right of the Layout buttons.
2. Each word now has its pronunciation under it. The first time, it can take a moment to load.
3. Choose Pronunciation again to hide it.

Point to the button to see which style is showing, for example “Pronunciation · IPA”. Your choice stays on for your next stories in this browser.

Romanized pronunciation shows a Greek word in Latin letters.

Example

Sarah reads a Greek A1 story. With Pronunciation on and the style set to Romanized, “καφές” shows “kafés” under it. Her Croatian stories show IPA instead, because Croatian is written in the Latin alphabet.

Choose Romanized or IPA

This choice matters only for languages that aren’t written in the Latin alphabet: Arabic, Bulgarian, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian.

1. Open the account menu at the top of the app and choose Settings.
2. On the Profile tab, find Pronunciation style.
3. Choose Romanized (Latin letters, for non-Latin scripts) or IPA (phonetic symbols).

The starting choice follows the first story you read: IPA if it’s in a Latin-script language, Romanized if it isn’t. After that, your choice holds for every language you read. Latin-script languages always use IPA, whatever you choose here. Stichos remembers this choice in this browser.

Tip

IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet, the symbols dictionaries use for sounds. If you don’t know it, Romanized is easier to start with.

What prints and exports

When Pronunciation is on, a PDF or EPUB of the story includes it too. Turn it off first if you want a clean copy. See Print, PDF, and EPUB.

I’m not signed in. Why is there no Pronunciation button?

Signed out, the reader can show Romanized only for stories in Cyrillic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and in Greek. Other languages show pronunciation once you sign in with a free account.

It says I’ve reached today’s limit for new pronunciations.

Pronunciations you’ve already seen still show. New ones are available again tomorrow.

Does the word box show pronunciation too?

Yes. When you choose a word, its box often shows the word’s IPA next to it, and a speaker button to hear it. See Looking up a word.

Related: The 40 languages · Audio · Looking up a word · Print, PDF, and EPUB