Look a little closer
Spelling is an unreliable guide to pronunciation. The same letters can represent different sounds, while different writing systems may represent similar sounds in incompatible ways.
The International Phonetic Alphabet describes speech through details such as tongue position, airflow, lip shape, and vocal-cord vibration. It is not one language's alphabet but a shared notation for human speech.
Dictionaries, language teaching, phonetics, and language preservation all use the IPA. It turns the fleeting physical act of speaking into something that can be compared and studied.
