The Sounds of Spanish

To tell you a little about my background, I am the editor of
Learning Spanish Products Reviews (LearningSpanishProductsReviews)
"your site for free Spanish lessons and unbiased reviews of
Learning-Spanish products." I am also a native Spanish instructor.
In addition, I am the author of two learning-Spanish products offered here at Amazon:

1. Anna Rivera's 1000 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Words

2. Anna Rivera's 800 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Phrases

Several of the readers of my Spanish-learners newsletter have emailed me and asked me if I could recommend a product that helps English-speaking students of Spanish improve their Spanish accent. That's how I came across this book.

Although the student of linguistics may find that this is an interesting book to read, the average student learning how to speak Spanish will probably find this book to boring to finish. I certainly found it too boring to finish reading.

The audio CD was of little help. The problem with the audio CD is that the student can not see the speaker. So the student doesn't know how to properly place her tongue, lips, teeth, mouth, etc. to make the correct sounds in Spanish. A DVD that the student could actually see and hear would have been more helpful.

The only two sections of this book that I did enjoy reading were the sections that debated about whether the proper name of the language is Castilian or Spanish? Castellano or Espanol? And the section that discussed the causes for the differences in pronunciation in each country or region: Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, Andean Region, Paraguay, Chile, River Plate (Argentina and Uruguay), and the USA, recognizing that the Spanish in the southwest of the USA has been heavily influenced by Mexicans, the same being true in Miami with respect to Cubans, and New York with respect to Puerto Ricans and Dominicans.

The are countless user-friendly books on the market to help Spanish-speakers get rid of or decrease their Spanish accent and sound more like an American (or Brit). Unfortunately, I have not discovered a user-friendly, fun and easy-to-read book for the English speaker that wishes to get rid of her American or British accent when speaking Spanish.