audio example by a male speaker
audio example by a female speaker
the above transcription of play is a detailed (narrow) transcription according to the rules of the International Phonetic Association; you can find a description of each symbol by clicking the phoneme buttons in the secction below.
press buttons with phonetic symbols to learn how to precisely pronounce each sound of play
press the "test" button to check how closely you can replicate the pitch of a native speaker in your pronunciation of play
An example use of play in a speech by a native speaker of british english:
“… it's also free to play and in this game …”
Play means to take part in an activity for enjoyment.
the word play occurs in english on average 216 times per one million words; this frequency warrants it to be in the study list for A1 level of language mastery according to CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference.
it is hard to perfectly classify words into specific topics since each word can have many context of its use, but our machine-learning models believe that play can be often used in the following areas:
1) leisure and entertainment;
2) people, society, and culture;