A method of generating a phonemic transcription for a word using a computer system is described. In one embodiment, an existing pronunciation generation program is applied to generate an initial transcription. The initial transcription can then be evaluated to identify likely bad pronunciations by looking for phonotactically impossible co-occurrences. Additionally, one or more rules can be applied to generate additional phonemic transcriptions. The resulting transcriptions may be used in place of the initial transcription and/or in addition to the initial transcription. Additionally, when multiple transcriptions result, the transcriptions are ordered according to preference and/or likelihood of use.