Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

θ	thin	ð	this	ʃ	she	ʒ	measure
tʃ	church	dʒ	judge	ŋ	sing	j	yes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

-s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
-ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
-ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

semester

UK /sɪˈmɛstə/ · US /sɪˈmɛstɚ/ noun

Forms semesters semestre

noun Half of a school year (US) or academic year such as autumn or spring semester. “I will graduate at the end of the spring semester.”
noun A period or term of six months.

Etymology

From German Semester, from New Latin sēmestris (“lasting six months”), from sex (“six”) + mēnsis (“month”).

noun A period of six months; especially, a term in a college or uneversity which divides the year into two terms.

Etymology [G., from L. semestris half-yearly; sex six + mensis a month.]

Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “semester”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details