As advised in the introduction this book offers a very comprehensive course for anyone studying linguistics or English pronunciation and is a standard text for many phonetics/linguistic courses. It uses RP, or BBC pronunciation as Roach calls it, with a clearly laid out `list of symbols` and chart of the IPA in the front few pages of the book. The book is a VERY solid text on phonology and works as an invaluable guide to studying the IPA and English sounds. I personally have gained from using it but it requires a lot of study, it really is a study book which needs a lot of time before any benefit is accrued. Don`t think you can start it at chapter 8 because unless you are trained in phonetics you will be lost. Having read all of the book though you will have receiced an excellent education in phonetics and phonology.

A final warning though: You are advised to buy the book WITH the cd or you might find like me that you cannot get hold of the CD. I tried to contact the publishers for this and they told me they have sold out. Also a search on Amazon did not yield any positive results for getting the CD.