What is Accent Coaching?

Let’s start with the basics:

What is an accent?

An accent is the unique way that speech is pronounced by a group of people speaking the same language. A person’s accent depends on many factors; however, accents are usually grouped in the following way:

  • Regional Accents – for example, people who are from Texas often sound different than people who are from New York.
  • Foreign Accents – for example, someone who was raised speaking English will sound different than someone who was raised speaking Spanish and learned English as an adult.

Accents are a natural part of spoken languages. It is important to realize that no accent is better than another. It should also be stressed that an accent is NOT a speech or language disorder.

– American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Now let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of having an accent:

Advantages:

  • An accent displays a large part of your identity, namely where you’re from
    • It can be used to find people of similar sociocultural backgrounds with whom to socialize
    • It can be an attractive/intriguing quality to someone unfamiliar with your particular accent, which can lead to conversation and cultural learning and understanding

Disadvantages:

  • Mispronunciations or improper stress (of syllables or sentences) can lead to confusion and obstructions in communication
    • These mistakes can lead to frustration, avoidance of social interaction, and they can even impact your job performance/acceptance and education
    • These mistakes can also negatively impact your own self-esteem
  • Accents can also carry stereotypes, which although not your fault, can negatively affect your interactions with other speakers

Here’s where the accent coach comes in:

An accent coach can provide a variety of speech-modification services.

If your goal is to reduce your accent and sound more like the native speakers in the area where you live, you’ll want to work with an accent reduction coach. They can help you to pronounce words and make your sentences flow with the same cadence and rhythm as native speakers.

If your goal is to obtain a different accent, which you might need if you’re an actor playing a role that is not of your own nationality, then you’ll need a dialect coach. They work very similarly to accent reduction coaches, although their goal is to help you create an accent/dialect for a language you already speak, rather than reduce your accent to match that of another language.

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