Say 'pin' and 'spin' and feel the puff of air on the first p but not the second — same letter, different sound. Phonetics studies those physical speech sounds, and phonology studies the hidden rules deciding which differences a language even notices.
Sounds vs. sound systems
Phonetics studies the physical sounds of speech — how they are articulated and heard. Phonology studies how a particular language organizes those sounds into a system of contrasts. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can distinguish meaning within a language.
'pat' and 'bat' differ in one sound and mean different things, so /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes in English. Such minimal pairs reveal a language's phonemes.
The IPA gives one symbol per sound, so 'ough' in 'though', 'through', and 'tough' is written distinctly: /oʊ/, /uː/, /ʌf/.
Tap a word to cycle its part of speech.
Analyzing structure starts with segmenting language into its units — here, words and their categories.
- Compare the words 'sip' and 'zip'.
- Identify the single sound that differs.
- State what that proves about /s/ and /z/ in English.
What you should see: 'sip' vs. 'zip' is a minimal pair differing only in /s/ vs. /z/, proving they are distinct phonemes in English.