NATO phonetic alphabet translator
Type a name, a call sign or a code and see it spelled with the ICAO and NATO spelling alphabet, one word per character. Switch to decode to turn a spelled-out message back into letters and digits.
Runs in your browser: nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
How to use it
- Choose Text to words and type or paste your text. Each letter and digit becomes one word.
- Words of your text are separated by a slash, so “hi you” reads Hotel India / Yankee Oscar Uniform.
- To go the other way, choose Words to text and paste the spelled-out message. Press Copy to take the result.
How it works
Every letter A to Z has a fixed code word, and every digit has its own word. The tool looks up each character in these two tables. Line breaks are kept. When decoding, the words are matched without regard to case; a slash becomes a space; a word that is not in the tables is shown as a question mark and counted below the result.
Worked example
“NATO” becomes November Alfa Tango Oscar. “A129” becomes Alfa Wun Too Niner. Decoding “Hotel India / Yankee Oscar Uniform” gives HI YOU, in capital letters because the words carry no case.
Tips
Say the words slowly and clearly; the point of the alphabet is that no two words sound alike over a poor line. The digits 3, 4, 5 and 9 are spoken Tree, Fower, Fife and Niner so they are not confused with other words.
Frequently asked questions
Is NATO phonetic alphabet the same as the ICAO alphabet?
Yes, in practice. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defined the spelling alphabet, and NATO, the military and many radio services use the same words. It is also called the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet.
How are digits spoken in this alphabet?
ICAO pronounces them Zero, Wun, Too, Tree, Fower, Fife, Six, Seven, Ait and Niner. This tool writes digits that way when encoding, and when decoding it also accepts the ordinary words One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Eight and Nine.
Why are some words spelled Alfa and Juliett?
The official spellings are Alfa and Juliett so that readers in every language pronounce them the same way. When decoding, the tool also accepts the common spellings Alpha and Juliet, and X-ray with or without the hyphen.
What happens to punctuation and letters with accents?
Accents are removed, so é is spelled as E. Punctuation and other symbols are copied unchanged, and the space between two words becomes a slash.