Rating: 
Summary: Great Book!
Review: This book approaches accent reduction from a different perspective. Intonation is introduced before everything else, this unique approach truly makes this book stand out. The author also offers diagnostic analysis, which is very helpful if you want to know where your accent is standard and where it is not. I highly recommend this book and the diagnostic analysis, I think these features helped me greatly already.
Rating:
Summary: This training book really helped me alot!...
Review: This book helped me alot in proper stress and diction of words that I wanted to convey particularly to unaudible words. This book is really what you need if you are serious about improving your communication skills. Thank's to the author of this book, Ann Cook!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Ineffective for ESL Students
Review: THis book is no use for students of ESL. It appears that only people who live in the States can use it. Acquiring an american accent outside the US can make you sound like a wiredo!! Not recommened for ESL students. I have found several langunge programs on the Web. Most of them are better.
Rating:
Summary: Strongly recommended.
Review: This book is the best one I've bought. When I ordered it from Amazon.com, I expected the arrival of the book. When I got it last week, I was so excited. I was too impatient to read it. I have to say: "It is too perfect!" It was an accurate decision that I made. It is worthful to spend the money on. Thanks Amazon.com. Thanks the author, Ann Cook. Thanks God!
Rating: 
Summary: Helpful But Hard
Review: This book offered me a good insight into how to change my accent to sound more like an American. The book is well written and took me through the steps one-by-one. My success, however, was moderate. First, accent reduction is not for the lazy. You must work very hard. Second, I had no way to know when I was getting an intonation or pronunciation wrong. I found I was spending a lot of time practicing and, at times, I was reinforcing the wrong thing. Although the book was helpful, I found I really had to work with a competent accent reduction teacher to make significant improvement.
Rating:
Summary: The best book from all books on the market that I've seen
Review: This is a fantastic book. HIGHLY recommended. It even moved me to write my first review on Amazon. I had no idea that improving my accent would be so much fun and so interesting. The main strengh of the book is in the system. The first one third of the course is devoted to the intonation training, which builds a good foundation for the individual sound training that is to come later. Instead of focusing on particular sounds from the beginning, you learn to think large and change your actual speech flow. There are a couple of books on the market with a price tag of $100+ that get good reviews - I am not familiar with them, they might be good too - but in the price leage of this book ($30+) you can't get anything better for the money. Of course, what matters the most is how committed you are and how much actual time you spend practicing. I think this book provides a good foundation for my work on my accent reduction. If I need more excersises on particular sounds in the future, I might think about getting some other books as additional study aids, but to pick just one book for $40, nothing can beat Ann Cook's book. Plus, the course includes CDs, not tapes, which is of tremendous convenience. I tend to repeat each exercise lots of times until I feel I am ready to move on to the next one. You can't do it so easily with the tapes. The only drawback is the packaging. When I got the book, some of the CDs where scratched and not playable. I had to exchande them not even once, but twice. So, maybe buying it online isn't such a good idea - be warned! At least, my local book store could order 3 new sets for me and let me open them and pick the good CDs. If you buy online, the last think you want to do is to deal with returns and exchanges. Overall, great book! I am recommending it to all my friends and family members. If you are like me and sick of being asked all the time where you are from as soon as you open your mouth, this book is for you. Hope you'll benefit from it too. Good luck to you all!
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!!
Review: This is one of the best books i've seen on the market today!! I've been buying alot of these types of books and this is the only book I think I can safely say, I was glad to spend the money on. Let me say that English is my first language, but living in a foreign country, i find that most people may not understand an accent not British or American... so since everyone watches american tv I tried for fun to sound american. This book is packed with all types of tricks to sound american which really works!! I pronounce and link my words like americans do, but I don't sound american so oblivously, all the other titles concentrating on this area were of no use to me.. But this book really gets to the areas that send you on your way to an american accent (you'll have to buy the book to find out!!) One of the greatest things about the book, is the 'after I bought this book' service. The book provides details how to have Ann test to see how american your accent is.. Now, you always see stuff about how much experience the authors have, blah, blah, etc but how do we really know all of this?! The fact that she interacts with folks proves to me that she has the means to get feedback about the strengh and weaknesses of most people are and write good books about it, in which she did! What I like about it too, is that it comes with CD's rather than tapes, so if i want to hear something again.. I know exactly where to find it.. That's modern day thinking for you and I like folks that think. Another thing I like about it, is that I am greated with a voice that has a strong american accent. With other titles, you had to listen hard to hear the american accent.. if fact they sounded like folks from a documentary or something... now how many people on the american streets talk like that?? It was thus refreshing to hear this strong accent and have voice to which to look forward to sounding like. This book is so detailed that it is for everyone from advance speakers and downward. So if you want to improve your english, I guess you can risk other books but i don't think you'll find something better. On the other hand, if you want to SOUND american, this book is the bomb!! buy another book and you could have well be tossing your money in a wishing well!!...
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Summary: Do you want to learn how to speak like an american?
Review: This product is really good for people who are from different country and have an accent other than that of an american. It helps you to learn how to speak like an american. It teaches you how to change your speech by the ways of practicing intonation, different ways of pronouncing some particular type of words, and many more stuff. When you start progressing through the book and simultaneously listening to the Audio CD's, you will find that your speech is getting different - sounding like american.
You will also find why and how American Accent is different from others. Now the price is low, the book is excellent, what are you waiting for?
Rating:
Summary: Seriously flawed
Review: Though helpful for training rhythm, intonation, and to some extent sounds, a major shortcoming of the book and accompanying CD's is that all examples are given in one voice, the author's, who does not speak standard American English, as defined by the pronunciation indicated by all major dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, etc.).
The phoneme "aw" is conspicuously absent from the CDs and the book, for it is replaced by "ah" in the author's dialect, so that 'caulky' and 'cocky', e.g., are pronounced alike.
There is actually one sample of speech that is not spoken by the author; it is a radio extract, which is spoken in standard American English; and the book uses a special symbol to represent the phoneme "aw" that occurs in the extract, without any explanation whatsoever.
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