NATO Phonetic Alphabet Translator
The NATO phonetic alphabet gives every letter a clear code word, so names, email addresses and codes can be spelled without mix-ups on a bad phone line or radio. Enter your text and the translator shows each character as its code word, ready to read aloud.
Source: Wikipedia – Buchstabiertafel (spelling alphabet; table of the versions: DIN 5009:2022-06, DIN 5009:1996, ICAO). Updated: .
How it is calculated
The NATO phonetic alphabet, officially the ICAO spelling alphabet, assigns one code word to each letter so that similar-sounding letters cannot be confused. “B”, “D” and “P” are easy to mix up on a poor line, “Bravo”, “Delta” and “Papa” are not. The translator turns your text into these code words and shows them as a line to read aloud and as a table.
The alphabet at a glance
- Letters: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. The spellings “Alfa” and “Juliett” are the official ones.
- Digits: in radio speech 3 is pronounced “Tree”, 4 “Fower”, 5 “Fife” and 9 “Niner”, so that they cannot be mistaken for other sounds.
- Symbols: the tool also reads out @ as “At”, the full stop as “Dot”, and hyphens, underscores, slashes, colons and commas. Spaces appear as a pause.
- Accented letters: letters like é, ñ or ü are spelled as their base letter.
Where it is used
Pilots, ship crews, emergency services and call centres use it daily; it is just as handy for dictating a booking reference, a licence plate or an email address. For the same text in dots and dashes, try the Morse code translator, and to check how long a text is, the character counter. The code words follow the ICAO table as documented on Wikipedia; the alphabet is not the same as the International Phonetic Alphabet used by linguists.
Frequently asked questions
What is the NATO phonetic alphabet?
A spelling alphabet in which each letter has a code word: A is Alfa, B is Bravo, C is Charlie, and so on up to Z, Zulu. It is standardised by the ICAO and used worldwide in aviation, shipping, the military and customer service.
How do I spell an email address with it?
Enter the address above. Each letter becomes its code word, the @ sign is read as “At” and the full stop as “Dot”. Say the words one after the other and pause where the table shows a break.
How are numbers spoken?
In radio speech: Zero, Wun, Too, Tree, Fower, Fife, Six, Seven, Ait, Niner. The unusual forms for 3, 4, 5 and 9 prevent confusion with similar-sounding words.
Is the NATO alphabet the same as the International Phonetic Alphabet?
No. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a notation for speech sounds used in linguistics. The NATO alphabet is only a spelling aid made of ordinary code words.
Why “Alfa” and “Juliett” instead of “Alpha” and “Juliet”?
The ICAO spelled them this way so that speakers of any language pronounce them correctly: “ph” is not read as “f” everywhere, and a final “t” in Juliett keeps French speakers from dropping the sound.
Sources and legal basis
- Wikipedia – Buchstabiertafel (spelling alphabet; table of the versions: DIN 5009:2022-06, DIN 5009:1996, ICAO)
- Wikipedia – NATO phonetic alphabet (ICAO spelling words, digits in radio speech)
As of: · Editorial policy
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