American Accent Training With Audio Kindle Edition

I am not a native English speaker. I have been speaking English for about 15 years though and living in the US for 7 years. I definitely don't have a thick confusing accent and Americans keep telling me that "your English is so good and you don't have a difficult accent at all." However, I don't speak with an American accent :(It has mentally put me under pressure (partly because I tend to be perfectionist) to the point that sometimes I don't speak among others just because I don't want to be that token person. So, I decided to buy this book and try to change my accent (although I am one of those people thinking that your accent forms in your childhood.)Having gone through a few pages of this book and listening to the audio files, I have gained great info so far and am motivated to change my accent (even if it's just getting closer a bit to the standard accent.)I will update my review as time passes and I keep working through the book.BTW, this book's material and design is excellent especially the American flag design.Every time I pick up this book I feel so patriotic. I know I wasn't born here but the US is my adopted country and I would die for it. US of A :)Update-1, 11/4/2017: Something has been really bothering me about the way phonetics has been done in this book. Why not IPA? We spend so much time learning IPA in order to use a dictionary and then all of a sudden in this book you see a new convention (that I haven't seen anywhere else.) I am making my conversion table to IPA for this book and really wish that in the future editions the author would use IPA.

I bought this new version ebook is because of the downloadable audio, however, the error message "Invalid File Type - The Experimental Web Brower cannot download this kind of file. Only files with the extension .AZW, .PRC, .MOBI or .TXT can be downloaded to your kindle" pops up and can't download to my kindle paperwhite (10th)...The downloadable files are in .mp3 format, that's why...

I really want to like this book and give it a great review, but the more I use it with my high level students, the more frustrated I become. The kindle version has its shortcomings, first of all. Some of the charts that contain small fonts are almost impossible to read on a device like a phone or iPad. Even on my laptop it's a struggle. Some of the charts are even incomplete (like exercise 1-35 is missing the three syllable patterns completely). The book is organized in such a way that it's difficult to find something specific, like a particular vowel sound. And the search feature just isn't particularly helpful. And some sounds are covered well, and others are really just glossed over. Many of the practice paragraphs use difficult and uncommon words that students will rarely if ever use in day to day speaking, and they come out sounding like tongue twisters, so the effort is more on trying to pronounce words they will never use than on building fluency and excellent pronunciation. I think this is the biggest downfall of the book. In addition, the author teaches the sounds of caught and cot as the same sound, which, for the majority of Americans, are distinct. So I always have to basically reteach this section in my own way or find another source for that lesson. I've made the decision to change to another book that may have fewer practice exercises, but they make sense and use common language that students will come across in their daily life. This book has great potential, but as it's the fourth edition, I would expect something much better.

Kindle version has audio links to http://americanaccenttraining.barronsaudio.rints.comthis content is not available anymore (none of the audio files could be listened).The book is semi-useless without audio examples

This book is very thorough and covers every aspect of the American accent. All the material is there for you to interpret but it is quite technical. I don' t think it for the layman. I think you have to be knowledgeable about linguistics and the vocabulary that comes with it. However. I am taking it a little at a time and will use some of the ideas from it but in layman's vocabulary to help me improve the American accent of my foreign English students. It will be my guide and I couldn't do it without this comprehensible book.

I have been using the paperback version since 2018, and to be honest I found that the procedure necessary to get the audio files quite onerous. I teach in a variety of locations and having to answer questions based on the books content too time consuming.However, the Kindle, on the PC version, is perfect. Just click on the headphone/speaker icon and the audio will open in a separate tab and plays flawlessly. Of course, it would be better if the audio opened on the textbook, especially now that so many teachers are using Zoom and switching screens between the audio and the textbook is not always smooth.Another issue that I have always had is that the audio models are way too fast. The explanations need to be slower and the listen and repeat examples do not provide sufficient time for the students to listen and repeat. One model follows the other with barely no gap. Now that we have to switch screens frequently, this is a pain.But, all in all it is a very thorough and easy to use system.

I love this book ,since I bought the first edition, I continued buying the further editions, I have the collection.5 starts for Ann Cook.If you wanted to be understood when you talk this book is a MOST

This is a book that I would like to recommend to all English learners. Before I read this book, I was skeptical how a book could help someone to actually correct their accents. It really surprises me! It explains everything clearly and the exercises are pratical and helpful. I hope everyone could have the chance to read it!

A good book and well written, but it would be better with CD-rom.

Amazing

Material que foi um divisor de águas no meu estudo de inglês...Me senti muito mais confiante na minha última viagem aos EUA e comprovei que todo conteúdo exposto nesse livro é real (pelo menos em NYC).Você percebe alguns detalhes de pronúncia e se pergunta: como eu nunca percebi isso???As sutilezas fazem toda a diferença na sua fala e hoje recebo muitos elogios na minha pronúncia!

This e-book is a mess. It mixes a lot of linguistic concepts with common-sense. The pictures are low-quality and the audio files open in the web browser, which makes it difficult to keep up. It may be a bit useful for people who are looking for a more basic stuff regarding English pronunciation, although not recommended for academic studies. I'd pass if I still could.

もっと高度な内容が書かれているのかと思いましたが、初歩的な内容で私には不向きでした。書かれていることは初歩的でありながら、基礎レベルの英語学習者が読むには難しい内容ですので注意してください。収録音声に従って、練習したからといってもこの本文に書かれているセンテンスの発音が多少改善されるだけであって、全体の発音が上手くなっているとは言えません。この本一冊で発音が習得できるとは思わないでください。普段の会話の中で本書に書かれていることを適応するのはそう簡単なことではなく、相当な会話量の中で時間をかけて身につけていかなければならないのが発音であり、本書はここに書かれている内容をすでに普段の英語環境の中で解っている人が、その理解の補足に使うならば幾分役には立つでしょう。それにしても浅い内容ですが。この書籍の英文が読めるのにもかかわらず、本に書かれているレベルの発音を体で習得理解していないのであれば、リーディング能力に対して、リスニング能力とスピーキング 能力のレベルに相当開きがありますので、この書籍を買うよりまず順を追ってもっと基礎的な発音を習得すべきです。第４版であるにもかかわらず、誤字、音声ファイルが壊れているなど不備が多い書籍で、exerciseの答えにまで間違いがあるのが致命的でした。また解説がないので、なぜ答えはこうなるの？と言う疑問が出ても解決できず、出版社から聞いた著者宛へのアドレスに直接メールを送っても、返信を得られませんでした。他にもっと安価で良い書籍が海外にはありますので、私はこの書籍をおすすめする事はできません。