Speaking Clearly: Improving Voice and Diction

This book and cd's are great, but after ordering it you will recieve a never ending stream of email ads and requests from Amzon trying to sell you more products, asking for reviews and surveys. I can not recomend getting it from them unless you are prepared to cancel your current email account.

My speech was getting sloppy--wasn't enunciating clearly & my mouth felt lazy. So I bought this book & CD set. I play the CDs in my car while commuting to & from work, & I find they are wonderful. The exercises involve repeating words that are grouped by vowel & consonant sounds, then progressing to repeating phrases, then to repeating sentences. The pace is fast (so you don't lose interest), the sentences are pretty complex (so you have to be attentive & not lazy) and there are are several CDs too, (so you don't get bored). Doing the CD exercises has definitely helped remove the marbles from my mouth, and to iron out certain bad habits I was getting into pronunciation-wise. I'm sure the book is great too, though I haven't used it yet (I picked this package mainly for the CDs, as I'm forever buying "Improve Your Speech" books & not doing much with them). I'm a native English speaker, so I've no idea how helpful this set would be to someone who is switching from another language.

I didn't realize before I used this book how many things I mispronounced, even though I am a native English speaker. This book really helped me work on many weaknesses in my diction. This belongs on the shelf of every actor and singer. A reviewer recommended this book for speech therapists, but I would also recommend it for actors, singers, frequent public speakers, and for other people who use their voice professionally, and even for help with stuff like accent elimination. This book also helped me learn IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), which I've found to be a tremendously helpful tool.

I used it for my Accent reducing classes at NYU. Takinng such a course can be challenging and it helps to have this comprehensive but not intimidating book. Even now, long after I have completed the course I find myself picking the book up time and again.