How to speak English backwards

Simply

1. Break the word or phrase into phonemes.
2. Reverse the order of the phonemes
3. Reverse each phoneme

Example

  ----Ladies--------   ---and---   ----------gentlemen----------
 l | ay | d | ee | s | a | n | d | j | e | n | t | l | m | e | n
   |    |   |    |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

 n | e | m | l | t | n | e | j | d | n | a | s | ee | d | ay | l
 
 n | e | m | l | ' | n | e | j'| d | n | a'| s | ee | d | ye | l'
 
 neml'nej' dna' seedyel'

Note that the apostrophes here are glottal stops.

Guidelines for reversing phonemes

• When considering the whole phrase, reverse all characteristics: pitch, intonation and emphasis

  For example, a phrase with a rising pitch (such as a question), becomes falling pitch when reversed.

• Reverse the envelope

  Audible sounds have a natural attack and decay curve, called the envelope. During attack, the volume of the sound increases, and during decay, the volume decreases. When a sound is reversed, the attack becomes the decay and the decay becomes the attack.

  What we are concerned with here is the duration. A sound with long attack and decay has a similar envelope when reversed; similarly a sound with short attack and decay (such as a plosive consonant).

  A leading vowel, i.e. one beginning a word, has a short attack curve and a long decay curve. When this is reversed, it acquires a glottal stop, for the short decay curve. Indeed, this applies to leading fricatives as well. Vowels and fricatives which are not leading, blend into the previous phoneme; there is no short attack curve, hence no glottal stop when reversed.

• Reversing vowels

  Vowel sounds can be divided into single vowels and diphthongs. A diphthong is a transition between two vowel sounds. To reverse this needs the opposite transition of vowel sounds, e.g. we becomes you.

  In addition, reversing a leading vowel acquires a glottal stop (see above), and a trailing vowel (which it not glottal) acquires an aspirant "h" when reversed to give a long attack. For example, reversing acme gives heemka' . Note that this process happens the other way round also: how becomes waa, whereas ow gets a glottal stop and becomes waa' .

• Reversing fricative consonants

  In a similar fashion to vowels, leading fricatives acquire a glottal stop when reversed.

• Reversing plosive consonants

  Plosive phonemes are normally leading sounds to a syllable. When reversed, they become trailing, which feels unnatural to English speakers. These can acquire or be replaced by a glottal stop like the "t" in the "Ladies and gentlemen" example above.

How to see how good you are at talking backwards

chkul' dorg'