library(stringr)
x <- c("saɪəns", "ɪvɒlvd", "ˌʌndəstænd", "skɑːb(ə)rə", "pəteɪtəʊ", "dɪskraɪbdɪ")
sapply(str_extract_all(x, "(.)(?=.*\\1)"), function(z) paste(unique(z), collapse=""))
bGlicmFyeShzdHJpbmdyKQp4IDwtIGMoInNhyarJmW5zIiwgIsmqdsmSbHZkIiwgIsuMyoxuZMmZc3TDpm5kIiwgInNryZHLkGIoyZkpcsmZIiwgInDJmXRlyap0yZnKiiIsICJkyapza3JhyapiZMmqIikKc2FwcGx5KHN0cl9leHRyYWN0X2FsbCh4LCAiKC4pKD89LipcXDEpIiksIGZ1bmN0aW9uKHopIHBhc3RlKHVuaXF1ZSh6KSwgY29sbGFwc2U9IiIpKQo=