Phonetics is the study of speech sounds (and, in the case of sign languages, how gestures reflect their own meaning). We will explore how sounds are made and heard. Our goal will be to understand the IPA, or International Phonetic Alphabet, how to listen to and write out English, as well as to explore the variety of sounds in the words languages. We will practice transcribing English, which, for many people, provides additional insight into how the language sounds and why language learning is challenging. This module can be taken by itself or as part of a larger Introductory Linguistics sequence of modules.