Audio files from an undocumented language called Language X. Listen and write down what you hear in IPA — the International Phonetic Alphabet, the universal one-symbol-per-sound notation.
Concept. Most writing systems are messy: in English, the
letter
Your task. Listen to each audio clip and type its IPA transcription in the box. Each recording is one word from Language X. There's no auto-grader (we don't have the answer key); the puzzle counts as filled when you've written something for all ten.
c is /k/ in "cat" and
/s/ in "sea", and in Turkish it's the sound at the
start of "jump". IPA fixes that — one symbol, one sound, across
every language. Look up symbols on our
phoneme cheatsheet (English
examples for every IPA symbol you'll need), or the
ILC IPA chart
for audio per symbol. Your task. Listen to each audio clip and type its IPA transcription in the box. Each recording is one word from Language X. There's no auto-grader (we don't have the answer key); the puzzle counts as filled when you've written something for all ten.
examples · listen + see the transcription
calibrate your ear before starting
i.
"small"
/mika/
ii.
"stone"
/ʈʃon/
transcribe · ten words
1.
to sing
IPA
✓ filled
2.
river
IPA
✓ filled
3.
to carry
IPA
✓ filled
4.
long
IPA
✓ filled
5.
tree
IPA
✓ filled
6.
cold
IPA
✓ filled
7.
to sleep
IPA
✓ filled
8.
house
IPA
✓ filled
9.
to break
IPA
✓ filled
10.
bright
IPA
✓ filled
Problem from the International Linguistics Challenge 2025 qualification round, problem A ("Phonetic Transcription", Language X, ★☆☆). Audio + problem from lingchallenge.org; audio is streamed from their server. The IPA chart sits at lingchallenge.org/en/ipa-chart.php. Next: Problem B · Word Boundaries →