Frequently asked questions
What is the NATO phonetic alphabet?
It is an officially standardised set of code words — one per letter of the Latin alphabet — used to spell out words unambiguously over radio, telephone and in military communications. It was adopted by NATO in 1956 and is also the ICAO and ITU standard used by all civil aviation worldwide.
Why was it created?
Static, accents and poor audio quality make many letters sound alike. Before standardisation, different countries used different code words. The NATO alphabet was designed so that each word is distinct even when heavily distorted, and the 26 words were tested against speakers of many languages.
What about digits and special characters?
Digits are spoken as their NATO names: Zero, One, Two… Nine. Special characters and punctuation are passed through as-is in this tool, since they have no official NATO equivalents.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.