Phonetics is the branch of linguistics that studies the sounds of human speech. It focuses on the physical production, acoustic properties, and perception of speech sounds, regardless of language.

• Articulatory phonetics: Studies how speech sounds are produced by the vocal organs.
• Acoustic phonetics: Examines the physical properties of speech sounds as they travel through the air, such as frequency, intensity, and duration.
• Auditory phonetics: Investigates how speech sounds are perceived by the ear and brain.

Phonetics is important for fields such as speech recognition, speech therapy, language teaching, and forensic linguistics.