INSTRUCTIONS

The Aim of the Game
Setting up each round
Taking turns
SPECIAL ACTION cards
Completing a round

Ver. 1.1

instructions list
look up a sequence

How to win Fonēmanon

Accrue as many points as possible each round by discarding cards by constructing English-language words with the phonemes marked on them. In other words, you create words by how they sound (rather than how they're spelled) syllable by syllable.

The winner of the game is the first person to win 2 (or a mutually-decided upon number of) rounds.

instructions list

Setting up each round

Divide the deck into two piles face down: consonant sounds (black suits ♣ & ♠*) and vowel sounds (red suits ♥ & ♦). Shuffle each pile.

Deal each player three cards from each pile.

As soon as each player has six cards (three red, three black), the player to the dealer's left will take the first turn.

look up a sequence

CRAZY ACES
*Black aces are the exception.
A♠ is the commA vowel sound (heard as schwa in most accents).
A♣ is a wildcard that can stand in as any 1 consonant or vowel sound.

BEGINNER LEVEL
Players may look up possible sequences at any point during the game

EXPERT LEVEL
Opposing players may challenge a proposed sequence. If the sequence is not found in the database, the proposer misses their turn.

LEXICAL SET
A group of English words that share the same vowel sound in a syllable, regardless of how they are spelled. Conceptualized by linguist John C. Wells in 1982, each set is referred to by a capitalized keyword to let linguists and dialect coaches compare pronunciations across different accents.
See Eric Armstrong's amazingly indepth website

instructions list

Taking turns

If a player is able to form a word from any (or all) of the cards they hold, they may lay them down in the same sequence the phonemes are produced in that word.

The score is the sum of the numbers on the cards, where an ace is worth 1 point (during play), a jack is 11 points, a queen is 12 points, and a king is 13 points.

Examples
/h_/ (9♠) + TRAP (3♦) + /p_p/ (7♣) + happY (2♦)
= HAPPY → 21 points

/m_m/ (6♣) + STRUT (3♥) + /n_n/ (2♣) + WILDCARD (A♣)
= MONEY / MONTH / MUNCH / MUNT (but NOT MONK, which needs /_ŋ/ (10♠) in the penultimate position) → 12 points

The player may lay down only one word during their turn. The points can then added to their running total, and those cards are then discarded to their personal pile, and play passes to the next player.
If a player has only one card remaining after a turn, they must announce it to the other players before the end of their turn or forfeit their next turn.

If a player manages to play all of their cards during their turn, they complete the round, but they don't automatically win it.

If a player is unable to form a word from their hand, they must draw a card from one of the available consonant or vowel piles, and play passes to the next player.

look up a sequence

Consonant sounds that show an IPA symbol only in syllable-initial position like /h_/ cannot occur at the end of an English-language syllable. In the same way, /_ŋ/ can only appear at the end of one. Most consonant sounds (such as /p_p/) can appear at the beginning or at the end of a syllable.

Vowel sounds forn the core (or nuclei) of almost all English-language syllables and are represented in this deck by the names of the 27 lexical sets. This poses a challenge as most accents combine (merge) two or more of the sets into one vowel sound.

The happY card represents the vowel sound that occurs in unstressed, free syllables (not closed/checked by a consonant at the end of them), most notably at the ends of words such as movie, coffee, and honey. Why? Because in some accents, the vowel in the happY set is different from that in the FLEECE set. Just listen to how a Mancunian (a person from Manchester, England) pronounces really at the end of a phrase: the first vowel sound is quite different from the last one!

English speakers from North America tend to use the same vowel sound for past, after, graph and other BATH-set words as they do for TRAP-set words like plastic, angry, graphic, as opposed to speakers from the South of England, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, who tend to use a longer one.

Most of the vowel sound cards have lists of such related splits and mergers that affect various accents.

instructions list

SPECIAL ACTION cards

A round is complete when when...

  1. a player manages to discard all their card(s) in a turn, or

  2. both draw piles are empty, and all players who have one or more SPECIAL ACTION cards have played one during their previous turn AND no player is able to lay down a word

At that point, each player's running total will be reduced by the total sum of the numbers on the cards remaining in their hand, counting any held Aces as 11, and (as before) jacks as 11, queens as 12, and kings as 13.

Example
Robbie has a round tally of 37 points, but he still holds an ace, a king, and a 3.
37 - (11 + 13 + 3) = 37 - 27 = 10 points scored that round

Magnus has a round tally of 22 points, but he still holds a king and a queen.
22 - (13 +12) = 22 - 25, which clears his score for that round to zero.

Florence has a round tally of 28 points, but they completed the round by discarding their last hand.
28 - 0 (nothing remaining in hand) = 28

Florence wins the round, and score totals reset. The next round begins.

look up a sequence
instructions list

Completing a round

A round is complete when when...

  1. a player manages to discard all their card(s) in a turn, or

  2. both draw piles are empty, and all players who have one or more SPECIAL ACTION cards have played one during their previous turn AND no player is able to lay down a word

At that point, each player's running total will be reduced by the total sum of the numbers on the cards remaining in their hand, counting any held Aces as 11, and (as before) jacks as 11, queens as 12, and kings as 13.

Example
Robbie has a round tally of 37 points, but he still holds an ace, a king, and a 3.
37 - (11 + 13 + 3) = 37 - 27 = 10 points scored that round

Magnus has a round tally of 22 points, but he still holds a king and a queen.
22 - (13 +12) = 22 - 25, which clears his score for that round to zero.

Florence has a round tally of 28 points, but they completed the round by discarding their last hand.
28 - 0 (nothing remaining in hand) = 28

Florence wins the round, and score totals reset. The next round begins.

look up a sequence

GAME MODS
Show-off level
Each player gets a chance to add 5 bonus points to their round tally by saying the word they've laid down in one of the following accents (to the satisfaction of 1 or more of the other players) based on the first two cards in the sequence:
♣♦ = American,
♣♥ = British,
♠♦ = Australian,
♠♥ = Canadian,
♥♣ = Irish,
♥♠ = Scottish,
♦♣ = Kiwi,
♦♠ = South African,
♠♣ = European
♣♠ = South American
(You can search for the word in some accents using YouGlish)

Expert level
A specific region or city for the accent can be specified.

© 2026 TalkLikeThat
Dialect Coaching by Mark Byron Dallas
Toronto, Canada