Customer Reviews

English Pronunciation Made Simple (with 2 Audio CDs) (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A word of caution. The ad states, "Free audio CD includes all the exercises in the Student Book, providing a model of correct pronunciation for each sound." The audio CD's that are included do not cover all of the excersises in this book. These CD's only cover the "check yourself" section at the end of the book. You have to order a separate book and Audio Program to get all of the excersises.

This book does fulfill its title, promising to make English pronunciation simple! There are 3 parts: 1) vowels, 2)stress, rhythm, and intonation, and 3) consonants. The second section on "stress, rhythm, and intonation" is shorter compared to some other books, but I think it's very concise. Each section follows a consistent, logical format, including presenting individual words, then phrases, and then complete sentences. I only disagreed with a few parts of the book, about 5% perhaps. There were a few words included that don't match the traditional pronunciation that I have always known. Subtleties for softening the 't' sound on unaccented syllables isn't included. Plus, the section on intonation tries to project an intonation style that doesn't always seem natural to me. However, the example dialogs, prose selections and variety of poems serve a teacher and student well for a variety of examples. The book comes with 2 CD's for individual self-study. These 2 CD's cover parts of the book, but not every single exercise exhaustively. The other exercises are covered on 4 other CD's available separately. I teach ESL, American English pronunciation, and accent reduction in the Dallas, TX area. My website is www.EnglishAmericanStyle.com. To sum it up, I think this book presents a logical, fresh and varied resource for teaching, modeling, and helping students improve their pronunciation.

this book is great for students who want to study alone or need practice exercises in addition to classroom instruction. Word, sentence,and paragraph practice, along with CD's with good exercises.

Excellent book! It is easy and fun to use. You can Really improve your pronunciation. Must buy for foreign students.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this course is quite comprehensive actually - there are sections on vowels, stress and rhythm, consonants...I highly recommend it if you study on your own - you got everything you need here. Especially useful if you're confused with minimal pairs - sheep or ship, bad or bed and stuff like that. You'll get lots of practice and tips with these.

I used this book to help Japanese speakers improve their pronunciation. We found it very useful. I used the CDs as homework.

The book is in a very good condition but didn't come with the CD#1. Anyway, I have asked why, and the seller answered quickly explaining that they ship out items whether they have CD's or not. As written in the description when you purchased the item it says, "this item may or may not contain codes, cds, etc." I was overtime so I didn't return it.

This book has three parts: the vowel, intonation, and consonent. I like the middle one most. That's the content which teaches me how to adjust my pitch and accent to sound like an American. The book has a lot of pronounciation exercises. It's really worthy.

I volunteer as an English tutor and find this book invaluable for accent reduction exercises. I tend to use the diagnostic exercises (for vowels, consonants, consonants clusters, sentence stress) in the back of the book to identify the most important problem areas and then choose the corresponding chapters for drill work.

Example diagnostic sentences for the letter p: Pick up a pack of ripe apples. Mom will bake apple pie for supper.

Example drill work for the letters b and p: robe/rope, mob/mop, tab/tap, rib/rip, stable/staple, symbol/simple (one exercise out of 7 pages for b and p).

Additionally, during 'read aloud' sessions, I note mispronounced words, then after the reading, I go over the words with the student, and when there is a thematic problem (such as trouble with the letter p) I find the corresponding exercises and do some drill work with the student.

Final comments:

Each chapter has sufficient material for the drill work to be effective (as compared to some books that provide a few examples/exercises to illustrate the sound, but not enough to 'master' the sound).

Also, I agree with the previous comment that the book is not really suitable for self-study (although the hints for common spellings for each sound are valuable and suitable for self-study).

This is a very good book, specially for people that English is their second language. The book comes with two cd's with the check up exercises. However, we need to buy separetely the audio for the exercises in the book.