For instance, the phone in the English word hick, a word transcribed as in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), distinguishes it from other words, like hit, hip, hiss, hitch, etc., suggesting that belongs to a phoneme in English. The English words kid and kit, and in the IPA, end with two distinct sounds (phones), and , and swapping one for the other makes the one word sound like the other. Thus, in the English language, these particular phones are classifiable under two separate phonemes, transcribed as versus (slashes indicate phonemes in the IPA, while square brackets indicate phones). However, the difference between the sound in some dialects' pronunciation of sheet and the in shack ( versus in the IPA) never affects the meaning or identity of a word in English. Even if those particular phones are interchanged, those two words would still likely be recognized as sheet and shack by native English speakers. Therefore, the phones and do not belong to two separate phonemes in English; rather, they could be classified as two possible phonetic variations (called allophones) of the same phoneme. In contrast, languages other than English, such as some Slavic languages like Polish or Russian, may indeed perceive and as separate phonemes.
For instance the phone in the English word hick a word transcribed as in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) distinguishes it from other words like hit hip hiss hitch etc suggesting that belongs to a phoneme in English The English words kid and kit and in the IPA end with two distinct sounds (phones) and  and swapping one for the other makes the one word sound like the other Thus in the English language these particular phones are classifiable under two separate phonemes transcribed as versus (slashes indicate phonemes in the IPA while square brackets indicate phones) However the difference between the sound in some dialects' pronunciation of sheet and the in shack ( versus in the IPA) never affects the meaning or identity of a word in English Even if those particular phones are interchanged those two words would still likely be recognized as sheet and shack by native English speakers Therefore the phones and do not belong to two separate phonemes in English; rather they could be classified as two possible phonetic variations (called allophones) of the same phoneme In contrast languages other than English such as some Slavic languages like Polish or Russian may indeed perceive and as separate phonemes