Here's a breakdown:
* Phonetics: The study of the physical production and perception of speech sounds.
* Phone: A single speech sound, regardless of its role in a language.
* Phoneme: A sound that distinguishes meaning in a language. For example, the /p/ sound in "pin" and the /b/ sound in "bin" are phonemes because they create different words.
Examples of phones:
* The sound [p] as in "pin"
* The sound [b] as in "bin"
* The sound [t] as in "tin"
* The sound [d] as in "din"
Key points to remember:
* A phone is a purely acoustic event, an actual sound.
* A phoneme is an abstract concept, representing a category of sounds that contribute to meaning.
* A single phoneme can be represented by multiple phones. For example, the /t/ sound in "top" and the /t/ sound in "stop" are different phones but represent the same phoneme.
In simpler terms: Think of "phone" as a single, specific sound you make, while "phoneme" is like a category of sounds that have a similar role in the language.