On Phonetics

Whenever we look up any new word in a dictionary, we face a cluster of strange words enclosed between forward slashes beside each term. However, do we really know how to interpret them? And if so, how can we check it's being properly done? As far as I know, it's really hard for a non-native speaker to learn new sounds after a certain age. Unless you belong to this latter gifted sort, how will we manage to fill that gap? Fortunately for all of us, many researchers have borne that in mind and they have already published a great amount of resources to overcome it. While I've been surfing the net, I've found this phonemic chart published by Cambridge English Online. It provides the learners, on the one hand, with their isolated phonemic pronunciation, on the other one, with  their clarifying phonetic performance within a word. We can't deny this helping hand! If you're interested in it, just click here.
If you want to refresh your spelling, click on this link to the English Alphabet.