The Phonetic Alpabet

Lady facing to the right with her mouth open with various colours of letters coming out of her mouth. Used to demonstrate the use of phonetics in communication

Last updated on September 8th, 2023 at 09:26 am

The Phonetic Alphabet is used in communications in order to be as clear and unambiguous as possible when communicating information.

Some letters sound very similar when communicated quickly; examples being b, p & v, or m & n.
Over a crackly radio signal or a long distance telephone line, miscommunication could be common.

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie

Early two-way radio users in the military developed a way to transmit important information such as co-ordinates in a way that would be very clear to the receiver so that costly mistakes could be avoided.

Enter the Phonetic Alphabet – a way of speaking full words to represent each letter of the alphabet.

Modern day use

The phonetic alphabet is still commonly used today, and most are familiar, or even obvious to the listener, which is the whole point.

When conveying information such as postal codes, or when spelling a placename even with modern communications it can still be useful to use phonetics so that you can be sure you have communicated your information correctly.

If you’re struggling to be understood, try using the phonetic alphabet!


The NATO Phonetic Alphabet in full

AAlpha
BBravo
CCharlie
DDelta
EEcho
FFoxtrot
GGolf
HHotel
IIndia
JJuliet
KKilo
LLima
MMike
NNovember
OOscar
PPapa
QQuebec
RRomeo
SSierra
TTango
UUniform
WWhiskey
XX-ray
YYankee
ZZulu

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