Free reference
Viseme Cheat Sheet
A visual guide for artists and researchers working on lipsync: American English phonemes and the visemes they commonly map to.
Phoneme to viseme chart
English consonants. Hover over a sound to see its lip shape. Select it to jump to its photo poses.
In a pair, the voiceless sound is on the left. To hear each phoneme, visit the IPA chart hosted by Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
Chart Key Terms
bilabial: the upper and lower lips come together
labiodental: the lower lip touches or comes close to the upper teeth (the reverse, upper lip to lower teeth, is possible but rare)
dental: the tongue tip touches or comes close to the teeth, either between the upper and lower teeth or behind the upper teeth
alveolar: the tongue tip touches or comes close to the gum ridge just behind the upper teeth (the alveolar ridge)
postalveolar: the tongue makes a narrow passage just behind the alveolar ridge
palatal: the middle of the tongue rises toward the hard palate, the bony center of the roof of the mouth
velar: the back of the tongue touches or comes close to the velum (soft palate)
glottal: the sound is made at the glottis, the opening between the vocal folds: closing it briefly makes ʔ. For h, the vocal folds are held apart to allow free airflow
labiovelar: two constrictions at once: the lips round while the back of the tongue rises toward the velum, as in w. Neither closes completely, which makes it an approximant (more on approximants)
Before you copy a pose
These are isolated poses. Visemes in natural speech are much more complicated and context-dependent, but being able to observe them in unobstructed form is a helpful first step.
Every viseme varies. Some have fixed requirements (e.g. m/b/p need the lips to close entirely or nearly entirely), but the facial actions fluctuate with individual facial features, coarticulation, emotional context, volume, and other speech-related conditions. More on variability
Consonant poses
Ordered from the lips back to the throat, like the chart. Select a sound to switch the photo.
neutral / silent
no sound, relaxed
p/b/m
p as in pout
bilabial, plosive, voiceless
/p/ and /b/ require the lips to part after the initial closure to propel air for the plosive sound, hence the closed and open states.
b as in buccinator
bilabial, plosive, voiced
/p/ and /b/ require the lips to part after the initial closure to propel air for the plosive sound, hence the closed and open states.
m as in masseter
bilabial, nasal, voiced
f/v
f as in face
labiodental, fricative, voiceless
v as in visual
labiodental, fricative, voiced
θ/ð (th)
θ as in thoracic, wreath
dental, fricative, voiceless
ð as in teething, mouthing
dental, fricative, voiced
t/d
t as in temporalis
alveolar, plosive, voiceless
d as in depressor
alveolar, plosive, voiced
Under most circumstances, ɾ as in butter may be included in this viseme group.
s/z
s as in see
alveolar, fricative, voiceless
z as in zygomatic
alveolar, fricative, voiced
n/l
n as in nasal
alveolar, nasal, voiced
l as in labial
alveolar, lateral, voiced
tʃ/dʒ/ʃ/ʒ
tʃ as in chin
postalveolar, affricate, voiceless
dʒ as in jaw, gem
postalveolar, affricate, voiced
ʃ as in shine, spatial
postalveolar, fricative, voiceless
ʒ as in genre, measure
postalveolar, fricative, voiced
w
w as in wink
labiovelar, approximant, voiced
Under most circumstances, ɹ at the start of a syllable, as in red, may be included in this viseme group.
k/g
k as in king
velar, plosive, voiceless
g as in guess
velar, plosive, voiced
Under most circumstances, ŋ as in tongue and ʔ as in uh-oh may be included in this viseme group.
In many circumstances, j as in yawn may also be included in this viseme group.
h
h as in hippocampus, happy
glottal, fricative, voiceless
Vowel poses
i (ee)
as in eel, cheese, meat
ɪ (ih)
as in lip, which
ɛ (eh)
as in any, kept, levator
æ
as in cat, FACS, zygomaticus
ɑ (ah)
as in jaw, cause, stop
This reference doesn’t distinguish between [ɑ] and [ɔ].
ə (uh)
as in anatomy, nasal, about
ʊ (ouh)
as in puller, look, good
u (oo)
as in food, rue, mood
oʊ (oh)
as in lowerer, slow, moat
ɔɪ (oy)
as in joy, soy, join
The basics
What is a viseme?
A viseme is a group of phonemes that are visually indistinct from one another. /f/ and /v/ are acoustically distinct, but their observable lip, tongue, and/or jaw configurations are not perceptibly different, so they map to the same viseme.
The word is a portmanteau of “visual” and “phoneme,” coined by Cletus G. Fisher in his seminal 1968 paper “Confusions among visually perceived consonants.”
“The phrase visual phoneme has been shortened to viseme, and will be used to refer to any individual and contrastive visually perceived unit.”
How are phonemes mapped to visemes?
It’s a murky area in facial animation and research. There is no standardized set of visemes and no standardized method for grouping phonemes, so you will find different mappings everywhere you go.
How you should cluster phonemes depends heavily on your use case. If you want simple speech movements or can’t represent the tongue, you do not have a strong need to differentiate things like /t/ vs. /k/. If you want to get as nuanced as possible and can represent key tongue positions, it would behoove you to consider a more complex grouping system.
How is “viseme” pronounced?
Fisher did not specify, so there is no formal record. You may hear “veye-zeem,” “vih-zeem,” “veye-seem,” “vih-seem,” and others. Personally, I prefer “veye-zeem,” but I’m open to considering arguments against it.
For structured learning and frameworks
Live workshop · March 6, 2027
Lipsync Mechanics
Reading phonemes, building visemes, and judging lipsync. Learn the mechanical requirements for each sound as well as why and how to build them with FACS-based shapes.
Go deeper on speech
More reference guides
How to cite this page
APA
Ozel, M. (2022, January). Viseme Cheat Sheet. Face the FACS. https://melindaozel.com/viseme-cheat-sheet/
BibTeX
@misc{ozel2022viseme,
author = {Ozel, Melinda},
title = {Viseme Cheat Sheet},
year = {2022},
month = jan,
howpublished = {\url{https://melindaozel.com/viseme-cheat-sheet/}}
}