I am an ESL teacher and have had a great deal of success with this book. I have found that those students who make the techniques taught in this book into habits, and honestly put forth the effort to implement them into their everyday speech, are able to almost completely eliminate their accents over time. The techniques truly work. I had a whole library full of books at my disposal, but this is the one I have stuck with!!! It is not a one-time-read miracle book, but rather a handbook that, if reviewed often, can help a student get rid of their accent.

(By Ben Torgerson - Price, UT United States)

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!

(By +++ - CA, United States)