What is a pronunciation dictionary and why is it useful?
A pronunciation dictionary is a specialized type of dictionary that contains phonetic transcriptions and recordings which tell you how to pronounce words correctly. As compared to dictionaries of other types, this dictionary may include pronunciation for inflected forms of words, it lists more pronunciation variants and gives more precise transcription.
The most authoritative pronunciation dictionaries are:
The English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD) by Daniel Jones, Alfred Ch. Gimson and Peter Roach is a classic work on English pronunciation. The English Pronouncing Dictionary (Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary
Longman Pronunciation Dictionary
The EPD is in use for more than 100 years. It was originally compiled by Daniel Jones and published in 1917. The first editions included only British English and used symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the pronunciations of English words. American pronunciation was added only to 15th edition in 1997. The 16 th edition was published in 2003 under the title The Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. The 18th edition of Daniel Jones's classic work contains over 230,000 pronunciations of words, names and phrases. In addition, it includes lively essays on aspects of pronunciation by leading experts in the field of phonetics and phonology.
The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD) compiled by J. C. Well was first published in 1995(second edition-2000; third edition- 2008).
It is one of the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and authoritative pronunciation dictionaries available. Its expanded and completely updated new edition includes: - 135,000 pronunciations, giving full coverage of both British and American English using the alphabet of the International Phonetic Association.
References:https://www.livelib.ru/book/1000795171-longman-pronunciation-dictionary-j-c-wells
http://www.antimoon.com/how/cepd-review.htm; http://www.pearsonlongman.com/dictionaries/LPD/
The information was prepared by Nataliia Slyvka, PhD, Associate professor of the Department of English Philology and Methods of Teaching English.