This popular and accessible introduction to phonetics is now available in a fully updated second edition. Peter Ladefoged describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well-known languages. Important topics covered in Vowels and Consonants include: The main forces operating on the sounds of languages The acoustic components of speech and speech synthesis Computers and Text-To-Speech systems and speech recognition systems Descriptions of the sounds of a wide variety of languages that are reproduced on the accompanying CD. This revised edition includes a new chapter on how we listen to speech and the greatly expanded CD now contains data on 100 languages to reinforce learning and bring the descriptions to life. This superb introduction to phonetics describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well-known languages. Many of these sounds are reproduced on the accompanying CD.