This document provides an overview of phonetics as the study of speech sounds and their production. It discusses phonetics as a branch of linguistics focused on the smallest units of language. Phonetics is divided into three parts: acoustic, auditory, and articulatory. The articulatory branch studies how sounds are produced using places of articulation like bilabial, alveolar, and velar, as well as manners of articulation like stops, fricatives, and nasals. Various speech sounds are represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet.