Rating: 
Summary: Not my dream course
Review: I found plenty of materials. I found very clear instructions on how to do the exercise. I just failed to follow the instructions with all my desire and passion to improve phonetics. I am 45. Speak English fluently. Native Russian speaker. Not looking for fun. I just cannot believe it is not possible to improve phonetics without torturing a student.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Accent reduction book!!
Review: I had a look an many of the books on accent reduction and American Accent training. Many of the books had exercises similar to American Accent Training (AAT). But what they did not have was that not only were the exercises read aloud by the author but also the passages BETWEEN the exercises are read by her. This helped me greatly because I could repeat the exercises as well and the passages. So, I had twice as much material as any other book!
Ms. Cook is very helpful is giving suggestions and one can actually write/email her. And she is quick in replying back too. I liked this because I could ask more about the book and her suggestions on studying from the book. Its greatly helps to ask the author about his/her book.
She encouraged me to learn through telephone conversations but I thought that to be rather expensive.
The BOOK:
The book starts with basic pronunciations and goes into details like liasons between words. With 5 CDs there is alot to learn. Also, with CDs it is easy to rewind or repeat the tracks as often we wish. The book does a great job in teaching students many of the tricks and pronunciation rules one observes with the Americans.
My best suggestion in using this book would be to read, practice and listen to Americans. I learnt alot by observing how the Americans speak and very often you can relate a certain pronunciation to a rule in the book. And, that is fun!
Rating: 
Summary: just don't !!!
Review: I have tried the book, I have tried her on-the-phone classes (by the way, $2,500.00) - it doesn't worth it! She will work with you from her house, and half of the time she will talk to her son and pet her dog.
Rating: 
Summary: Great to improve English speaking
Review: I started from a very low expectaion, but soon found it very helpful. I am not aiming at acquring American accent since I am living far way from the State and have many friends who are more familiar with British accent. But, Cook's instruction helped me a lot to be more sensitive to intonation and stress of English words and sentences, and now I can speak even more clearly. I do not speak fast, but getting louder and practicing stress pattern already made a great difference. I recommend it to especially those who have difficulty in properly "speaking up" for some reasons.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book but CDs are incomplete
Review: I think this is a good book for non-English native speaker. I'm practicing and hoping it can help me improve my spoken English. You can find a lot of good points in this book from other customers' review. One thing that bothers me is that CDs skip several explanatory paragraphs from the book. There are important techniques or examples in those missing parts too. I don't know if it is intentional or not. But it smoothly proceeds to the next section. I did ask the author by email given in the book but no any response. Yet, all exercises are still in CDs.
Rating:
Summary: A good way to learn to English
Review: I think this is a very good book to learn real American English. I find it very helpful to me to understand how American people use their English. English is my second language, and I have learned British English. I really recommend this book if you like to learn American English.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've ever read, but I still have a French accent.
Review: I've got to say this is the best program on accent training I have ever done -- but unfortunatly, it hasn't worked for me as of yet. I am a French guy who came to the United States 14 years ago. During those years, I've seen many people my age, my gender, and my nationality take on the American accent in less than two years. And somehow, I feel the American accent is just within my reach, but I'm not quite there yet and I'm really getting frustrated. In particular, there is one exercise in this book which seems to really pinpoint my problem. It's the one in which the author breaks down a sentence sound by sound and pronounces each sound in the reverse order the sentence was originally in and then it's the job of the student to write down those sounds and guess what the original sentence was saying. In other words, let's say the phrase was "American Accent Training blah blah...". She would not tell us what the original phrase was, but she would tell us something like "blah, blah, ning, trai, sent, naek, cain, ri, may, a". And then she would ask the student to write down each sound and try to reconstitute the sentence by having the student say the sounds in the order they were originally in. Well, I can't get past this exercise. I can never guess what the original sentence was without looking at the answer key, and now I've come to memorize the answer key -- so doing this exercise is really not that helpful anymore. In a way, this exercise has been a sort of epiphany for me. My problem seems to be one of listening, and not necessarily pronouncing, and I feel I am very close to resolving this issue. Stephan PS: I bought this book new from Amazon.com a year ago. The way the CDs were packaged by the original publisher, they were all scratched up when they got to me, but so far I'm about halfway through and none of the scratches seem to affect the quality of the recordings.
Rating:
Summary: american accent training
Review: It's a great book and CD, well prepared and very clear voice. Worth the money. I like her intonation and explaination. Also her voice is very clear. You should have this. The price is so reasonable. I highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful for people who can't pronounce most sounds correctly
Review: Most accent training programs would tell you that you may speak like an American after several months' practice (of course, using their books and CDs). However, those programs actually deliver less than they promise. They would primarily focus on how to differentiate several similar sounds. You would want to say "I think you are right" instead of "I sink you are light." Similarly, you may say: "I caught a cat and cut its tail" (sounds cruel by the way) instead of "I cut a cut and cut its tail." So the programs are good for those who are influenced by their own native language and those who can not tell the difference between similiar sounds (at least to them). If you can not make yourself understood because of the confusion of the sounds, those books might work for you. Thus far, you will be understood by the Americans or others who speak English. Remember that language is more a vehicle of communication and less a symbol of education or status. However, some people would still want to sound like a native speaker. Whether you would be able to speak like a native speaker depends on several factors: (1) When you start learning English, (2) How much you are influenced by your native language, and (3)how hard you are trying to improved your accent and how talented you are. The right guidance from the very beginning (e.g., teachers from the U.S., the right training program) would defintely help. If you have experts to help you with your pronunciation and give you feedback, you might be able to pronounce every sound exactly the same. However, the accent reduction training programs put the responsibilities on yourself, i.e., you need to hear the sound right and pronouce it right. But you really do not know whether you are pronouncing every sound exactly the same or not. In a sense, those training programs are not different from tape recording of just 48 English consonants and vowels. I did my undergraduate studies in English back in my home country. At that time I was fervent in improving my accent. I went throgh some training programs and practiced hard. We even had several books teaching us how to pronounce every constant and vowel, with illustrations showing where to put the tounge and where the sounds come from. And then I came to the United States. After a couple of years' studying in the states, I was told by some foreign students that I spoke like a native speaker. The native speakers, however, see a big difference. The point I would like to put across is that it is easy to correct your pronunciation, however, it is harder to pronounce every sound exactly like an American does. The book will definitely help if you have problems with "correct" pronunciations. However, it is not every useful if you would like to improve your "less perfect" pronunciation to "exactly the same." You may want to get some Americans to help you with every sound if you still want to achieve the "perfect" pronunication. The exactly the same pronounciation would take years to learn. And even if you pronounce every sound exactly the same, the way you deliver your speech or the organs you use to pronounce a sound are still every much influenced by you own way of speaking. You wound still sound foreign to Americans. An additional note: American intonation is relatively easy to learn. The book has some bonus chapters about how to do it, which I believe is helpful to some extent. Personnaly, I would prefer people to learn it by listening to tapes more often (e.g., audio books) or talking to Americans if you the luxury.
Rating:
Summary: Accent?? What accent? We don't need no stinkin' accent :)
Review: So, you can understand what they say. But they cannot understand what you say. This is you time to get this book. I've got the first edition from library and it helped a lot. I bought second one for my wife. We'll see how it would work for her. The second edition even better because it is much easier to work with CD. So, good luck And next step - buy Mavis Beacon :))
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