Customer Reviews

1 Year American English Pronunciation Patterns Network Subscription 7.0: Perfect English Pronunciation Software to Help You Improve Pronunciation, Speaking, Vocabulary, Spelling, Listening, and Reading, and Reduce Accent. (Downloading Only)

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me start from one question that puzzled me years ago. We all know that babies are geniuses in terms of learning languages, so everyone is born to master languages. Then, why is that the older we are becoming, the more difficult for us to learn/correct pronunciation? Is that paradoxical?

As youths or adults, we are influenced by the external effect and the internal effect.

1) External effect: wrong or non-native pronunciation we learned for the first time was imprinted.

2) Internal effect: for other rarely used words, we didn't know how to pronounce them; usually we just smartly make up the pronunciation of those words because we don't have the time or too lazy to look up the dictionary. Unfortunately, most of time, we were too smart.

For babies, they just absorb whatever they are taught. As long as they are taught correctly, they are not subject to either the external or internal effects. If we take a closer look at the babies' case, we will find out that imitation is the most important skill for babies to learn pronunciation from their parents. Now I find that Pronunciation Patterns could act as "Pronunciation-Mentor" to us also.

I have been using Pronunciation Patterns for a while. I would like to write several reviews on Pronunciation Patterns.

I want to start with sharing my story - what I did in improving pronunciation before I used Pronunciation Patterns.

Firstly, I watched TV and DVD intently everyday. Several months later, I noticed that, although my listening had greatly improved, my pronunciation was still stagnating.

I was frustrated by my progress on pronunciation. Then, I decided to find something, such as pronunciation books, CDs, or software on Amazon.com, to help me improve my pronunciation. I didn't find any software there. Instead, I found several books with/without CDs on how to improve pronunciation. After reading all those reviews @ Amazon, I realized that the authors emphasized more on rhythm and intonation rather than on pronunciation, but what I really need was a pronunciation solution which can help me correct my pronunciation.
Therefore, I decided to correct my pronunciation one word at a time myself. What I did were:

1) Ordered the CD audio version of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th);
2) Downloaded the list of the most-often used 2000 or 5000 English words online;
3) Listened to the pronunciation of each word played by the CD.
However, the CD audio version of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary let me down and almost drove me crazy. One of the frustrations was that I couldn't just make a list of the words for me to practice with again and again.

After all the unsuccessful tries, I almost gave up. One day, I happened to find Pronunciation Patterns via google. After studied Xin's story and tried the Demo, I loved Pronunciation Patterns (I would explain why I like Pronunciation Patterns later). However, I didn't believe software designed by a Carnegie Mellon MBA graduate student without teaching English experience could really help me out.

What pushed me forward was one sentence on Xin's website - "If you are determined to improve your pronunciation in 1 year, for less than $0.33 a day, you can take advantage of this new method to help you perfect your pronunciation". Great Deal! That was my last straw.

From now on, I will try to review Pronunciation Patterns objectively. It has some interesting features and I will go through them one by one.

1. Auto-play 4000 words.

I would choose any software should it own this feature. Usually, 3000 words are enough for us to handle routine conversation very well in the United States and 4000 is even better.

Here, I like to share with you how I took advantage of the auto-play option:

1) I have been investing 25 minutes to listen through 500 words every night.
2) Next day, I would go through those words again and chose the words I have trouble with.
3) I just played these words over and over. Sometimes, I just let my PC play the pronunciation while I was doing other house works.
4) Within one month, I have noticed that my pronunciation has improved greatly.

By the way, I was also surprised to find out that I made lots of mistakes before - the right pronunciation of many words is totally different from how I pronounced.

2. Grouping

Grouping is one of the most useful features of Pronunciation Patterns I would like to recommend. Xin believes learning patterns is very helpful in learning/correcting pronunciation. After I tried this software, I agree with him.

Grouping lists words sharing same pronunciation rules together. Obviously, this function can help us out at least in two ways: 1) help us memorize the pronunciation of many words simultaneously; 2) master the pronunciation of tough words easily (as long as you can remember the pronunciation of one of the often-used word in the same group).

3. Rules

There are 57 rules with examples in this software. To be honest, I didn't know most of them before.
With those rules in mind, sometimes I can even correctly pronounce the word which I see for the first time.

4. Mouth Video Clips

This is the best video I have ever seen. Unlike the other videos, this animation video shows me clearly the movement of each organ of mouth/throat when one vowel/diphthong/consonant is pronounced.

One of the most difficult parts in learning/correcting pronunciation is that, even Americans demonstrate how to pronounce a word, it is still kind of difficult for us to mimic. The reason is simple - our mouth isn't used to produce some of English sounds. Phonetic Demonstration isn't enough for us to clear understand; a video demonstration is better. Actually, I have been dreaming of this feature for years.

5. Mouth exercises

The mouth video clips can just show you how to do it. Whether we can do it or not still depends on our efforts. We need to train our mouth consciously first; gradually, mouth movement will be subconscious. For who want to build the strong mouth muscularity to perfect your pronunciation in a short time, I encourage you to try the mouth exercise.

Excellent program for those who want to improve pronunciation of American English. It is so good probably because it was developed by a Chinese immigrant who knows exactly the difficulties of speaking English as a second language.
The software contains interesting features, including easy link to online dictionaries, mouth video clips, text to speech and other interesting resources.
The layout of the software and sound grouping by pattern are very intuitive and user-friendly.
Online assistance provided was first-class, prompt and customized.
I recommend it for beginners and advanced students who want to improve their oral communication skills in English.

I have bought this Pronunciation Patterns Professional for one year.Now i feel very confident to pronounce a word; and I can make other people understand my point clearly. The program has so many functions; and I enjoy the mouth clips most since I can figure out how to say the vowel or consonant correctly after watching the clips. To adults, watching the movement of the mouth is the best way to learn a language since the accent of adults are strongly influenced by a language so it is very difficult to change the accent of an adult. Therefore, knowing how to move your mouth when pronouncing vowels and consonants will help adults to"mold" their mouths to change their accent.

The last word is that I rate this program 5 stars for its perfect function.

I felt the great needs to improve my pronunciation when I started my career as a childcare teacher. I taught Kindergarten children, my job required me to read stories, sing songs, and communicate with children, parents and other staff daily. I felt so embarrassing when people didn't understand what I was saying.

So I started looking for programs that can help me improve my pronunciation. The Pronunciation Patterns greatly helped me improve my English pronunciation, it is more easier for me sound out a word even I don't know its meaning. As well, it makes easy to memorize words in a pattern group. Now I fell more confident to communicate with people.

Thanks Mr.Wang for creating this useful program.

It is an excellence program. I bought it just a couple days ago and try it out with many features that are very handy for me to perfect my pronunciation in English.

There are so many tips and rules that easy for me to follow and remember since I am a rule-based learner.

One thing about this program is so flexible that at beginning when I launch the program, I don't know where to start in order to maximize the learning. Thanks to Xin, with his guidance that make me up to speed quickly.

Everything is there; the only thing left is my commitment.

Thanks Mr. Wang for creating this awesome product.

IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO DESCRIBE THIS MAGICAL PROGRAM AND THE UNIQUE IDEA OF DESIGN BEHIND IT. First of all, it offers everything you need to improve your pronunciation with thousands of useful words and examples. The time to see results will be shortened greatly when you use this program (I have used it for 2 weeks, and without exaggeration, I have corrected the pronunciation of 200 words I usually use in my daily activities). There are many great features, but my favorite is that you`ll be able to browse the internet and find the sound and meaning for tens of thousands of words that you can download to your program and add them to your hoard of words- I love it. Besides all the benefits and qualities found in this program, and the ease to use it, it's your devotion and dedication that will make this educational tool more enjoyable. Go for it and enjoy it. By the way, they offer a superb and reliable support.

To me the program has proved to be very helpful, even though I haven't exactly followed the proposed lessons. I have used the software according to my own "plan". Firstly, I identified my main problem areas and kept working on them - over and over again. I started out with what I would call the "parrot mode" (first listen and then repeat) and then, after a while, spoke out the words loudly and then checked my pronunciation. Secondly, I systematically began "revising" all 4000 words, since I noticed that even though I know a lot of words and theoretically know all the English vowels and consonants (and how to pronounce them), I have not always learned the correct pronunciation.
This process has been quite time consuming (and I am still working on it) but I think this was my key to success. You should make it a habit to work on your weak points on a daily basis. If English is not your native language, I guess perseverance and the right tool is key unless you belong to that happy 1% who can "imitate" every dialect or language.
The cost might seem high but looking up every word and the respective pronunciation would be too tedious for me.
To sum it up, the product is a great and very helpful tool but you have to invest some time and motivation.

The Pronunciation Pattern software has revolutionized my life. I was twenty-four years old and reading at a middle school level. After four months of using this program, I gained self-confidence in my speaking and writing skills. This software is not going to help you over night. After two months of using it, you will notice a significant difference in your speaking ability.
This program teaches individuals to breakdown words, so you are able to enunciate them properly. Also, if you have difficulty in enunciate vowels and consonants this program will make it easier for anyone.
This program gave me the confidence I needed to go to college. After two and a half years, I graduated from college with my Bachelor's Degree in Management. If this program was not invented, I wouldn't have fulfilled my dream of going to college.
I would rate the service a 5 out of 5. If you encounter a problem with this program, it usually takes a couple of hours to get a solution for that problem.

I have been sourcing various programs (books and software) on English, particularly in the area of Phonics and Phonetics, and was glad that I found this incredible English Pronunciation Patterns software.

The software is very well layout for ease of use, and most important is the great information it has to assists anyone who wish to pick up good English pronunciation and also improve in his listening and reading.

It covers all the sounds of the alphabets, consonants, vowels, diagraphs, dipthongs and so forth in a systematic presentation, integrating both Phonics and Phonetics; a real feat to accomplish!

We find the software to be very suitable for the English enrichment training we are conducting here in China!

"I have lived in the US for 5 years, but I still have problems with speaking. This product focuses on `Phonics' and how to pronounce individual phonetic signs. This is what I have been looking for."