In 1900, Jones studied briefly at William Tilly's Marburg Language Institute in Germany, where he was first introduced to phonetics. In 1903, he received his BA degree in mathematics at Cambridge, converted by payment to MA in 1907. From 1905 to 1906, he studied in Paris under Paul Passy, who was one of the founders of the International Phonetic Association, and in 1911, he married Passy's niece Cyrille Motte.