Customer Reviews

Accent Reduction Made Easy : Learn in Your Car (Discovery Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Accent reduction needs more insightful advice than what is offered here. I didn't get much out of this program - just some drills that didn't seem to have much of a tie-in to anything of importance. I lost interest quickly and now think that I wasted my money. I highly recommend Sam Chwat's great work for accent reduction of regional American speech, Ann Cook's excellent program for learning the "music" of American speech (but watch out for her misguided advice on dropping consonants at the end of words - it will make you sound like a somewhat unpolished and mumbling American), and the living language series.

The author wastes valuable real estate of cassettes by numbering different sounds for about 10 minutes. During this time the only thing you can do is to listen passively. This part is absolutely useless. Next, the author describes sounds as they are pronounced in different words. But it is exactly the reason why I bought this program in the first place - I cannot hear the difference! - the cassettes are useless without the book. And that is the third reason this program is bad - the author constantly refers to the book and you can't drive and read, if you follow my drift. The program is not totally useless, you may practice in your car by repeating words after the author, but the title "Learn in your car" is a misnomer.

I'm German, and have loved studying English all my life. Though I have never lived in the United States, I've used Jane Wellborn's method with great success. It's intuitive, precise, and beats the pants off of the competing products. The diagrams of tongue positions inside the mouth for the different sounds have been especially helpful, but I strongly recommend that you use a mirror while practicing. If you work really hard with this method, you may even be able to fool people into thinking that you're an American. Thank you Jane!

I bought this audiotape along with many other accent reduction titles. This audio did help me confirm what I realize about my pronunciation. It makes sense to spend my driving time doing something more productive. However, I found it hard to practice without looking at the booklet (when I am driving).

Author has an accent herself , Chinese to be precise. If you want to change your accent to Chinese just get the book! She does not pronounce well some vowels in series (diphthongs and triphthongs), so they are just swallowed. Also she is so focused on pronunciation of separate words that it is hard for her to express the intonation of the whole sentences. She has good English but one can expect more from the teacher.

The tapes are of good quality. You also get a pocket size manual.
I took Jane's class years ago. In order to reduce your accent you must practice, practice, practice.Otherwise it is just good knowledge in your head.
You can also check out Donna Hope's accent reduction Book+CDs

I tried two dezons of similar products, this one is the most helpful.

I bought this book/cassette hoping that it would help me with my southern accent, but it was not helpful at all. It seems like it would help people who speak English as a second language, but not those of us who need help reducing our southern, or even northern, accents.

I HIGHLY recommend this accent reduction program. Great things do NOT happen overnight. IF you practice it over and over again, your English pronunciation will get better and better. It is very organized, and you can make your own back up editions of it. As an example, you can make a CD of just the vowel sounds, and another CD of those consonants that you personally find it "hard" to articulate or to pronounce. I suggest to put your CD player in shuffle mode, and to practice at least 30 minutes every day. If you PERSEVERE 30 minutes a day with your CD in shuffle mode, you will eventually, certainly, and strongly "hear and SAY the difference"!

This is a supplemental learning aid. I also encourage the reader to feed their minds with their favorite topics in English to acquire vocabulary and to practice their pronunciation.

Key Word: PERSEVERE!