Category:Phonetic guides

Some languages' writing systems do not provide enough information about the pronunciation of words or have a significant number of words/word forms where it is not provided. To provide the information about the pronunciation to children or adult learners, these languages use additional scripts or a modified script, written next/above/below/before/after the main text.

Phonetic guides are used when the intended audience may not have mastered reading without them - language education texts for children, foreigners or dialect speakers; when the correct pronunciation is considered very important - religious texts, some poetry, dictionaries for disambiguation purposes. It can be used when certain words are known to be difficult - geographical or personal names or when the pronunciation is counter-intuitive.

Some major languages with difficult writing systems and the most common phonetic guides used (the International Phonetic Alphabet may of course be used for any language):

• Arabic - Harak تكات), also known as Tashkīl (تشكيل) - vowel marks.
• Chinese - Pinyin (汉语拼音) (mainland China), Zhuyin Fuhao (注音符号) (Taiwan) (also called Bopomofo ㄅㄆㄇㄈ). Cantonese may use a number of romanizations for the same purpose but this is not standardized.
• English - uses a number of respelling systems or transcriptions.
• Hebrew - Niqqud, also known as Nekudot (נִקּוּד) - vowel marks.
• Japanese - Furigana (振り仮名) (usually written as small Hiragana (平仮名,) above or next to the main text)