This paper examines transcription of sounds from a phonological perspective. It has found that most of transcriptions have been done on a segmental basis alone, without consideration of the whole phonological systems and levels, and without a full understanding of the nature of the linguistic and phonetic alphabets. In a word, sound transcriptions have not been done on the basis of the phonology of the language and the alphabet. This study shows a phonological model for transcribing foreign and native sounds, suggesting ways of improving some of the current transcription systems such as the Hangeul transcription of loan words and the romanization of Hangeul, as well as the phonetic transcription of English and other foreign languages.