Review of the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (16th edition)

example page from the dictionary

The English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD) is one of the most well-known works on English pronunciation. Its first edition, published in 1917 and written by Daniel Jones, used symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the pronunciations of English words. This system of transcription was further improved by A. C. Gimson in the 13th edition of the EPD (published 1967). Gimson's system is now used by nearly all English dictionaries published in the UK, including those from publishers like Oxford, Longman or Collins.

The first 14 editions of the EPD covered only British English. The 15th edition (1997), published by Cambridge University Press and edited by Peter Roach, James Hartman and Jane Setter, introduced American pronunciations. The changes in the 16th edition (2003) are relatively small — new words and over 150 "information panels" explaining phonetics terminology.

Why is a pronunciation dictionary useful?

Here are the advantages of a specialized pronunciation dictionary, such as the EPD, over a general dictionary with definitions of words:

• More words. A pronunciation dictionary can list pronunciations for more words than a general dictionary. It can include first names, last names, geographical names, company names, trademarks, etc.
• Word forms. It can give the pronunciations for inflected forms of words — e.g. starts, started, starting — not only for the main form like start. This is especially helpful for beginner learners, who can learn that e.g. goes ends in , not .
• More pronunciation variants. A pronunciation dictionary can list more ways to pronounce the same word. Specifically, it can explain how to pronounce a word in a sentence. For instance, and is pronounced //, but "and all" may be pronounced //.
• More precise transcriptions. It can use additional symbols to give more detailed information on pronunciation.
• More authority. We can expect that a pronunciation dictionary will contain fewer errors in transcriptions than a general dictionary.

Whose pronunciation is covered?

An important question about any pronunciation dictionary is "Whose pronunciation is represented?". The EPD answers this question in its well-written introduction.

• For British English, the authors have chosen to abandon the famous model of Received Pronunciation (RP), an accent of upper-class Britons. Instead, they follow a standard called BBC English, which is the pronunciation of those newsreaders on BBC radio and television who speak with an English accent.
• For American English, the model is "Network English" — the accent of professional voices on news and information programs on American national TV networks (such as CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX).

We like the definition of the pronunciation models. Almost all speakers of English watch TV, therefore the "TV accents" are very understandable. They are also easiest to learn, because television networks like BBC World or CNN International are widely available and the sound quality on TV is excellent.

The introduction

Besides defining the pronunciation models (see above), the introduction also discusses the editors' way of writing transcriptions. For example, we learn the following things:

• that the vowel in modern British English is pronounced in a very open way, so that may no longer be a good symbol
• that is a more accurate symbol for the "oh" vowel in both British and American English; however, was chosen because other phonetics resources use it
• how , , and are pronounced in various words
• the basics of elision (the skipping of sounds in rapid speech) and assimilation (when one sound becomes similar to the one after it)

The introduction does not tell you everything about pronouncing English words. Still, it contains a few useful facts for every serious student of English pronunciation.

The transcriptions

The transcriptions are based on the phonemic system developed by A. C. Gimson for the 13th edition of the dictionary. This is the same system that is used (usually with certain small modifications) by virtually all English dictionaries from UK publishers, such as Oxford or Longman.

A couple remarks about the symbols used in the EPD:

• The editors have added a few non-phonemic symbols to Gimson's system. The symbols for the "middle i" (), the "middle u" (), and the superscript schwa () are a standard feature of most modern dictionaries. It was a good idea to use these symbols. Although it does not change the meaning if you say // instead of // (both i's are the same phoneme), the "middle i" sounds much more natural.
• The EPD does not use the (which means " or ") or (which means " or ") symbols, used in Collins dictionaries. For example, the word motivate is transcribed / | --/ instead of / /. The results are: more transcriptions and less readable entries especially for longer words with many pronunciations.
• The dictionary uses two different symbols for the "syllabic l": and . The first means that either the syllabic l or may be pronounced; the second that that only the syllabic l is possible. So fickle is transcribed //, but cyclical is transcribed //. The "syllabic r" is also used, so that favorite is transcribed / | /.

The dictionary transcribes all inflected forms for all entries (for an example, see picture to the right). This is a great feature for beginner learners who often have difficulty pronouncing the -s or -ed word endings. By consulting the EPD, they can quickly learn that e.g. kits is pronounced //, but kids is pronounced //.

We also liked the treatment of weak forms. For each common "grammar word" like for or there, the dictionary explains how it is pronounced in various contexts. An example note for the word her is shown to the right.

Finally, the EPD explains "stress shifts" for all compound words. For example, in hard-working the stressed syllable is work. However, when the word is used in front of a noun (as in "a hard-working secretary"), the stressed syllables are hard and sec.

Separate British and American transcriptions

American pronunciations in the EPD are completely separated from the British transcriptions. Perhaps 90% of the entries list separate transcriptions for British and American English.

This is a completely different approach from the one used in the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (CCED), which tries to represent both British and American English with one transcription. The transcriptions in the CCED use mostly British phoneme symbols and the dictionary gives rules for "converting" these symbols into American sounds. For example, it explains that all symbols are really in American English.

Here is a sample of British and American transcriptions in the EPD and the "universal" transcription in the CCED:

word	EPD British	EPD American	CCED "universal"
pot
go
fair
near
lure
barn
four
mother
bird
writer

The symbol in EPD's British transcriptions means that you should pronounce if the comes before a vowel, e.g. before the in "four apples". In the CCED, it also means that you should pronounce in American English.

The EPD uses a special (non-phonemic) symbol for the "flap t" — the American version of the phoneme. According to the introduction, this is helpful for Britons who often find it difficult to decide when the "flap t" is heard in American English.

Generally, we feel that the "universal" transcriptions in the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary are both compact and readable. The two-part entries in the EPD are much longer and a bit harder to read.

Controversial American transcriptions

In our opinion, some of the American transcriptions in the EPD are quite strange:

• Inch is transcribed //. The symbol shows that is optional, which suggests that inch can be pronounced "insh"! The same mistake is repeated with other words ending in -nch, such as lunch and punch.
• Off is transcribed //. The pronunciation // is not given at all, even though it is very frequent on American TV — in our experience, much more frequent than //. The same problem occurs for other words beginning with off, such as office.
• Caught is transcribed / | /. The first pronunciation, which is supposed to be the most frequent one, uses the symbol. However, in our experience, the version is much more frequent in American "Network English". The same goes for many other words like law, bought, or dog. Interestingly, for words like call and always, where the vowel comes before an , the EPD gives the version first.
• Really is transcribed / | /. The very frequent pronunciation // is missing.

Because of these problems, we feel that we cannot fully trust the EPD as a source for American pronunciations. American dictionaries, most notably the Merriam-Webster Online, seem much more reliable.

Choice of words

Here is a list of example proper names that we looked up in the EPD successfully:

On the other hand, we could not find entries for:

We also couldn't find the popular last name Reynolds. Only Reynold is included, which is a strange choice, given that Reynolds occurs about 30 times more frequently on the Web (according to a Google search).

Information panels

The EPD contains over 150 "information panels" — colored boxes with explanations. These can be divided into two groups:

• 87 panels explaining terms used in phonetics and phonology, e.g. alveolar, intonation, liaison, syllabic consonant.
• About 70 panels explaining the relationship between English spelling and pronunciation, e.g. "pronouncing the letter U". Since the relationship is very weak, the panels are full of rules and exceptions to those rules.

Like the dictionary's introduction, the terminology panels contain some useful facts about English pronunciation. For example, one of the panels gives the following helpful information:

As the difference in voicing between / / and / / in syllable-final position is negligible, it is the length of the vowel rather than the voicing of the final consonant which contributes strongly to a native speaker's decision of whether a speaker has produced e.g. back or bag.

Layout

The headwords in the dictionary are printed in blue, which makes them easier to read. You can see how useful this is by looking at pages 373-391, where the headwords are printed in black by mistake.

Conclusions

The Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary is a useful resource for learners of English. Its main advantage is that it contains pronunciations that are not included in general English dictionaries, e.g. pronunciations of proper names and inflected forms. Before we got this dictionary, we could only learn the pronunciations of such words by asking a native speaker. Now we can simply look them up. For this reason, we're glad to have the EPD on our bookshelf.

We had hoped the dictionary would be the perfect pronunciation resource. It is not. Some American pronunciations are not fully consistent with the "Network English" model. A few are quite strange (e.g. "insh"). As a result, we still feel safer using American dictionaries, e.g. those published by Random House or Merriam-Webster. However, the EPD is a good resource for many American words which are not included in general dictionaries.

Apart from the "insh" problem, the British English pronunciations seem quite reliable, so learners of British English should be very happy with the EPD.

Example page and buying information

Take a look at an example page from the dictionary (warning: large file, about 170 KB).

You can buy the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary from Amazon.co.uk. The following versions are available:

• paperback with CD-ROM (about $30) (recommended; see our review of the CD-ROM)
• paperback alone (about $22)