The consonants "b," "d," "f," "g," "k," "h," "m," "n," "p," "s," "t," "v," and "z" have the standard phonetic values of General American English. No special symbol is used in this book to differentiate initial, middle, or final versions of these consonants. The following additional symbols are used:
- ch: like "ch" in church; a combination of the sounds "tsh"
- d: the aspirated tapped consonant sometimes heard in words like ladder
- dg: like "dg" in edge or "j" in just; a combination of the sounds "dzh"
- KH: like "ch" in Scottish lock; a guttural consonant in Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish and German
- kh: like "ch" in German Ich; also, a softer final version of "KH"; the initial sound substituted for "h" by some Russian and Spanish speakers
- L: like the General American "L"
- l: like the French liquid "l" in elle
- L: like the Russian dark "l"
- m and n: follow a vowel to indicate that the preceding vowel is nasal, as in the French "bon"
- ng: like "ng" in thing; indicates that the preceding vowel is slightly nasalized
- nk: like "nk" in think; indicates that the preceding vowel is slightly nasalized
- R: the standard retroflex American and British "R"
- R: the guttural "R" in German and Yiddish and its softer version in French; one of the guttural sounds in Arabic
- r: the tapped or trilled "R" in Italian, Spanish, etc
- sh: like "sh" in shadow
- t: the very breath, aspirated tapped "t" sometimes heard between vowels in the U.S. Middle West and British RP accents, as in water: wA'teR
- TH: voiced, as in this
- th: voiceless, as in thing
- ts: like "ts" in sets; German pronunciation of the letter "c"
- zh: like "s" in measure; spelled "j" in French je(I)