Lesson 2: Keys

The layout

The Phenrsteno layout is built to transcribe phonemes, so printed on the keys are the IPA symbols that represent those phonemes. Below is a simplified diagram of the layout.

Look at this Wikipedia article to see what phonemes these symbols correspond to.

How to write with it

To transcribe a word, first split it into syllables, then for each syllable think about:

1. How the syllable is pronounced
2. The sequence of phonemes that describe its pronunciation
3. The steno stroke for each phoneme

Step (1) you already know. Then there are some resources to help you with step (2) if you get stuck:

• Look it up in this chart on Wikipedia
• Look up your word on Wiktionary and see if it has an IPA transcription

For step (3) you should memorise the information in the diagrams and tables in this article.

Worked examples

• "Trash" is pronounced /traʃ/, so its stroke is traʃ

• "Send" is pronounced /sεnd/, so its stroke is send (the e key is used for the /ε/ phoneme).

• "Tetris" has two syllables: /tε trɪs/, so its strokes are te/trɪf (-f is also used for the /v/ and /s/ phonemes).

• "Race" (/reɪs/) and "raise" (/reɪz/) are distinguished only by their last phoneme. Their strokes are reɪf and reɪz, respectively.

• "Strange" is pronounced /streɪndʒ/, so its stroke is streɪndʃ (since -ʃ is also used for /ʒ/).

• For a word like "bidding" we can use -g to append the '-ing' suffix: bɪd for 'bid', but bɪdg for 'bidding' (otherwise it would be two syllables: bɪ/dɪng for /bɪ dɪŋ/).

• "Piled" is pronounced /paɪld/, so its stroke is paɪdl (the -d key acts as the {^ed} suffix in this case, despite occuring before -l).