When communicating, usually by phone or radio – but sometimes now when wearing a face mask, it can be difficult to get yourself across – especially when spelling things out. S and F are often confused, as are M and N. Nowhere is this more important than in the military, when a grid square MM2454 is very different to NN2454 – there’s no point in landing your troops in a school playground in Croatia, when they need to be on a Battlefield in Somalia. So NATO came up with a method of delivering letters without confusion using a standard alphabet (psst, Cubs, we’ll be using this next term, so time to learn!)
Letter | Phonetic | Pronounciation |
A | Alpha | Al-fah |
B | Bravo | Brah-voh |
C | Charlie | Char-lee |
D | Delta | Dell-tah |
E | Echo | Eck-oh |
F | Foxtrot | Focks-trot |
G | Golf | Golf |
H | Hotel | Hoh-tel |
I | India | In-dee-ah |
J | Juliet | Jew-lee-ett |
K | Kilo | Key-low |
L | Lima | Lee-mah |
M | Mike | Mike |
N | November | No-vem-ber |
O | Oscar | Oss-cah |
P | Papa | Pah-pah |
Q | Quebeq | Keh-beck |
R | Romeo | Row-me-oh |
S | Sierra | See-air-rah |
T | Tango | Tang-go |
U | Uniform | You-knee-form |
V | Victor | Vik-tah |
W | Whiskey | Wiss-key |
X | X-Ray | Ecks-Ray |
Y | Yankie | Yang-key |
Z | Zulu | Zoo-Loo |
Practice – imagine you’re on the phone to someone and you have a bad line, you’ve said your name twice, but they still can’t understand you – practice spelling your name out loud using the Phonetic Alphabet.
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