Longman Pronunciation Dictionary Paper and CD-ROM Pack 3rd Edition  (English, Mixed media product, Wells John)

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary by J. C. Wells is a comprehensive dictionary that gives guidance to readers on more than 225,000 pronunciations.

Summary Of The Book

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary’s modus operandi is aiding the reader with intonations by showing the stress patterns of the myriad compounds and idioms in the English language.

Rightly regarded as an essential guide, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary is one of the few books that presents readers with the knowledge of dual accents at the same time. The reader is given an understanding of American as well British English pronunciations with notes that explain the spelling-to-sound relationship.

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary has also been widely considered as a book that neutralises the strong influences of native accents while speaking the English language. The user-friendly graphs in the book that show the favoured pronunciations of British and American speakers, are particularly helpful. The graphs have been developed based on extensive research and study by the author J. C. Wells himself.

A treasure trove of information, the book’s up-to-date list of pronunciations includes not only those to be found in dictionaries, but also proper names, local and regional variants, foreign words, and derived and inflected forms. It was completely revised in 2008 and ever since includes new words such as iTunes, Skype, and Tikrit.

Another highlight is the Longman Pronunciation Coach CD that accompanies the book. It allows readers to improve and enhance their own pronunciations. The interactive nature of the book and the CD is a boon because it allows the readers to record and check their own pronunciations.

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary can also be used as a guideline by tutors since the Teachers' Resource Centre with the book provides downloadable exercises that can be used in the classroom. The book was first published in 1990, and is an ultimate guide and a valuable reference work of phonetics for readers who are looking at enquiring into the way the English language is spoken.

About J. C. Wells

John Christopher Wells better known as J. C. Wells was born in 1939 in Merseyside and is a British phonetician and Esperanto teacher. He wrote the first edition of Longman Pronunciation Dictionary in 1990, after he was appointed by Longman for the work.

J. C. Wells has written other books such as Accents of English and Geiriadur Esperanto / Kimra Vortaro. He has written essays like A Specimen of British English, Local Accents in England and Wales, Final Voicing and Vowel Length in Welsh, and English Pronunciation and Its Dictionary Representation.

His attempt to chronicle the subtle shifts in the way that speakers of English handle their native tongue has been widely acknowledged. J. C. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London. Till 2006, the year he retired, he held the departmental chair in phonetics in the university. He acquired a bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge, and a master's and Ph.D degree from the University of London.