A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning. It is a basic building block of speech and can be a single sound or a group of sounds that represent a specific letter or combination of letters. For example, in English, the words "bat" and "pat" differ by one phoneme, the initial sounds /b/ and /p/. Phonemes are important in phonetics and linguistics because they help define the sounds used in a language, contributing to pronunciation and the overall structure of words.

英語での「phoneme」の定義と意味

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