๐ป NATO Phonetic Alphabet Converter
The NATO phonetic alphabet is a radiotelephony spelling alphabet defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), widely used in aviation, maritime, and military contexts to prevent letters from being misheard over phone or radio.
Convert text into the international standard NATO phonetic alphabet (the ICAO radiotelephony spelling alphabet), used to prevent letters from being misheard over phone or radio.
How to use
- Enter the text (letters and digits) you want to convert.
- The phonetic word for each character is shown automatically.
- Copy the result to use it elsewhere.
How the calculation works
This tool replaces each letter and digit with its word from the spelling alphabet defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO): A is Alfa, B is Bravo, and so on, with a hard-to-mishear word for each of the 26 letters. The alphabet has been the international standard since 1956. Its words were chosen to be easy to pronounce for speakers of English, French and Spanish, and to stay distinguishable from one another through radio noise. It is spelled "Alfa" rather than "Alpha" and "Juliett" rather than "Juliet" so that non-English speakers pronounce them correctly. Digits 0โ9 are shown in ordinary English (Zero, Oneโฆ). Characters other than letters and digits, such as symbols or Japanese, are left as they are, and word breaks are shown as "/" in the text you copy.
Worked example
Input: JAL 123 Output: Juliett Alfa Lima / One Two Three When reading out a booking reference or model number by phone, letters that are easy to confuse, such as B and D or M and N, come across clearly as Bravo and Delta, or Mike and November.
Things to be aware of
- ICAO's official pronunciation says 3, 4, 5 and 9 as "Tree", "Fower", "Fife" and "Niner". This tool uses the usual English words (Three, Four, Five, Nine).
- The Japanese radio spelling table (such as ๆๆฅใฎใข, ใใใฏใฎใค) is a separate system.
- Upper and lower case map to the same word. If case matters, say so separately, for example "capital".
FAQ
What is the NATO phonetic alphabet?
A radiotelephony spelling alphabet defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), where "A" is spoken as "Alfa", "B" as "Bravo", and so on, to prevent letters being misheard over phone or radio. It's widely used in aviation, maritime, military, and amateur radio contexts.
Isn't the spelling "Alfa" or "Juliett" a typo?
No โ the ICAO standard officially uses "Alfa" instead of "Alpha" and "Juliett" instead of "Juliet" specifically to make pronunciation clearer for non-native English speakers.
Does it handle digits too?
Yes โ digits 0โ9 are each converted to their standard spoken form: "Zero", "One", "Two", and so on.