I hope somebody can come up with a better solution, but all I can think of is a workaround. If you can think of a word with the sound in it in a particular language, you could look it up in a dictionary that has an audio clip of the word being used by a native speaker. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phonetics notice the little sound icon beside the phonetic pronunciation in the link above.

Here is one.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/adam/files/phonetics.ppt.pdf

These tables look very similar to the one I learned at school. So basically the rows and columns are descriptions of the positions of the mouth/tongue/anything you use to speak. Combining the row and column together and you will get the “shape” of the mouth that produces the sound. I’m compelled to draw a picture to describe the tables, but here’s what you need to know:

- The column of the Vowels table is the position of the tongue. “Front” means your tongue touches the teeth. The rest of the column is just your tongue moving away from the teeth. The row is also the position of the mouth. Basically it goes from a near-close mouth to a completely open mouth.
– The Consonant table is more complicated. The columns describe the parts of the mouth that produce the sound, going from the front to the back. So we have:
– Bilabial: the lips.
– Labio-dental: the lips + the teeth
– Dental: the teeth
– Alveolar: this one is a bit hard to explain. So basically it’s the upper part of the mouth that is only a bit behind your teeth. Try to pronoun “t”, “d”, “n”, “r” and notice where the tip of your tongue touches.
– Post alveolar: just a bit behind alveolar. Pronoun “ship” and notice where your tongue touches to make the “sh” sound.
– Retroflex: not sure what this one is because my school didn’t teach that, but looks like it doesn’t belong to English. Looking at the table, it could be the same sound in English but with a stronger force to it. I’m thinking of things like the sound “r” in French.
– Palatal: the middle of your tongue touches the upper part of the mouth, kind of. Think “j” in “jar”
– Velar: a bit further away from palatal. Think “ng” in “ring”.
– Uvular: again, my school didn’t teach this. Look like it just goes further away from velar.
– Pharyngeal: my school didn’t teach this either.
– Glottal: this is the very back of your tongue producing sounds, near the throat. “h” in “hat”.
– Now to the rows. The rows describe how the sound is produced when you have the positions mentioned above.
– Plosive: you carry a bunch of air in your mouth and push them out forcefully, as if there is an “explosion” in your mouth. Pronoun “t” and “d” and see for yourself.
– Nasal: the air comes through your nose.
– Trill: my school didn’t teach this, but look like something to do with the French “r” sound.
– Tap or flap: notice how you Americans sometimes pronoun “d” in words like “later” or “butter”? That is what that “d” looks like.
– Fricative: while you are pronouncing the sound, it sounds like you’re doing a short “shhh”. The air and your mouth look like they are rubbing each other.
– Lateral fricative: don’t know what that is, haven’t learned that. But looks like there’s no sound in English for that.
– Approximant: a bit like fricative, but more intense. We have “j” in “jar” again.
– Lateral approximant: like approximant, but your tongue blocks the middle of the mouth so the air rubs on your mouth’s side. We have “l” in “leg”

Thanks all.

In the vowel chart, the rows are the height of the vowel, that is, how high the tongue is in the mouth. The columns are the backness, whether the tongue is toward the front of the mouth or toward the back.

Wikipedia is very helpful with phonetics. There’s an interactive chart on the right. You can click on a sound symbol and see examples in various languages and even hear a recording of the sound:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel

In the consonant chart, the columns are the place of articulation, i.e. where the sound is produced and the rows are the manner of articulation, i.e. how the sound is produced.

Rather than post the maximal, highly complex Wikipedia consonant table, here’s a link to the consonants found in English:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Consonants

You can click on the sounds to read/hear examples.

@Mimishu1995‘s explanation is good, just wanted to make one correction. What you’re describing as “approximant” is actually an “affricate”. Affricates are two sounds, a plosive followed by a fricative, like the “ch” in “church” or the “j” in “jar”. Approximants are sounds where the parts of the mouth barely touch each other, like the “y” in “yarn” or the “w” in “war”.

In my searches, one interesting thing I found, that you guys probably already know, was the existence of diphthongs. A long a, for example, is a combination of two sounds, an initial and a final sound. You can notice this for yourself if you try to pronounce the a over a few seconds. You start with one sound and end with the other.

@LostInParadise Yeah, in English many vowels are really diphthongs (combinations of two or more vowel sounds pronounced as a single sound). We don’t have many “pure vowels” like there are in Spanish or other familiar languages. Compare the pronunciation of Spanish foto with English photo. The English “o” has a slight “u” sound following it, and the lips begin to round almost to a “w” as you say it. Not the case in Spanish.

I studied Spanish in high school. There was no mention of diphthongs. What you say makes sense. To me the Spanish o sound just seemed softer. I can see how knowledge of phonetics can help someone learning to speak a foreign language. I know you use it in your profession. I am just generally curious about it. It should be taught in public school, at least the basics. Speaking our native language comes naturally, but there is so much about the way we speak that we don’t know.