Phone–phoneme distinction

Basic illustration of this point.

The phone–phoneme distinction is an important distinction in phonology made between phones and phonemes.

• A phone refers to a concrete, physical manifestation of a speech sound. It is the actual sound produced by a speaker and can vary in its acoustic characteristics. Phones represent the diverse ways in which a particular speech sound can be realised in different contexts or by different speakers. Phones are the specific instances of speech sounds that we can hear.
• A phoneme is an abstract, theoretical concept that represents a group of related sounds which are perceived as identical in a particular language, such as English. Phonemes are considered mental representations of sounds that speakers of a language treat as equivalent. They are the basic building blocks of language, and changes in phonemes can lead to changes in meaning.

Consequently, we can classify vowel phones separately from vowel phonemes, and consonant phones separately from consonant phonemes.

In linguistics notation, specifically IPA, phones and phonemes are represented differently. Phonemes are placed between forward slash brackets /laɪk ðɪs/ whereas phonemes are placed between square brackets [laɪk ðɪs].