I am Erik Singer, dialect coach and accent expert. You may have seen my video with WIRED breaking down Hollywood actors' accents! AMA!

How often do you hear that you look like Dennis (Glenn Howerton) from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

I'd never heard it before yesterday! I've actually never watched the show, but I'll have to check it out now.

I'd love to know what you think about Danny DeVito's accent. Is it an accurate version of a very short one-time-pimp who eats cat food?

I just want to know what accent pronounces "whore" as "hoo-er".

Irish accents, particularly older and more working class Dublin. (Any others in particular, Irish people?)

hands down, who gives the most impressive accent performance in all of cinema, given all the factors surrounding the situation? btw thanks for letting me make this video with you! :-)

Not sure I can pick one, and I certainly haven't seen every performance that's out there, but some of the best ones I can think of made it into the video. Idris Elba in the Wire, Meryl Streep and Sophie's Choice. Man, so many others. I'm always particularly blown away when someone nails an idiolect (the accent of one particular real individual). Streep's Thatcher in The Iron Lady is extraordinary, as was her Julia Child.

Meryl Streep is just a treasure.

Don't let Billy Eichner hear anyone say otherwise.

I coached Billy!

I was hoping you'd say Meryl Streep. She's wonderful.

She sure is.

Not every accent she does is as good as her best work, though. We actually had a few in the shoot that we found some fault with. One of the goals of the video was to show clips of the same actors doing both laudable and less-laudable work to underline the point that this is hard stuff and that the actors who do it deserve both our respect and more support and time to prepare!

RDJ in Holmes was brilliant

Well, yes and no.

Why are fake New Orleans accents always so terrible? Is there something specific about the dialect that is hard for voice actors to replicate?

I think it's mostly exposure. So much depends on the individual, though.

Hi Erik,

The WIRED video you were recently featured in was phenomenal. I did not know that there was so much that I did not know! Anyways, a reddit user pointed out that the Irish/Belfast accent Brad Pitt uses was indeed a Gypsy/Traveller accent. For my own curiousity, can you comment on that claim?

Thanks!

The commenters who pointed that out are absolutely correct. I had actually always thought/known it was a Traveler accent, but a bit of hasty research before we shot turned up a piece written by Pitt's dialect coach on the film, Brendan Gunn, in which he wrote about how they started off with Belfast. Pitt came to stay with Gunn in Belfast as they worked on it. The piece does mention, glancingly, that they shifted to Traveler speak. There are some similarities, but obviously it's not the same accent. I should have known better, and totally my fault.

Erik, this is Jeff Parker. Just wanted to say thanks for the great video and welcome to Reddit!

How are you enjoying it thus far?

Hi, Jeff! Thanks for the welcome! I don't know, how'm I doing? (I'm new to Reddit, guys.)

Jeff Parker, btw, is a brilliant coach and teacher.

When you hear made up languages from things like Game of Thrones or the LOTR, can you identify roots from actual languages/accents?

Sometimes. Depends. I love conlangs. I find the whole process fascinating, from design through execution with the actors.

Shout out to friend and colleague Jan Haydn Rowles, who does GoT, including all the Valyrian and Dothraki. She's brilliant.

Yeah I love conlangs too. I obviously know what conlangs are, but can you just say what conlangs are for the others who may not know?

Constructed Language. There's a long history here, from a 12th century nun named Hildegard von Bingen to Esperanto, Klingon, Dothraki, etc. Earlier impulses for conlangs were utopian and perfectionist—trying to improve on natural languages, help create world peace, find a 'perfect' philosophical language. These days they're mostly ones made up for fantasy and science fiction (books as well as film & tv). They're really cool, and usually pretty sophisticated, because they take everything we know about linguistics and create languages that feel like natural languages, 'imperfections' and all.

Do you have a favorite?

Not really. I like them all, and especially appreciate the amount of work that goes into creating one. I've dabbled in it myself. It's super-fun, but you can imagine how many things you have to work out. It's way more just the sound system—grammar, syntax, morphology, semantics.

It's a constructed language. https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/

Cool!

What's your favorite type of American dialect?

To do, to teach, to listen to?

All of the above

Hmmm. American accents...I have a lot of fun doing Ozarks accents. Teaching or coaching, wow, that depends so much on the actor, the script, etc. I like working with non-American actors on specific American accents. This is weird, coming from a white dude, but maybe especially black British (& other) actors working on African American accents. Listening: all of them.

For a great job with an Ozarks accent, check out Winter's Bone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE_X2pDRXyY

Jennifer Lawrence does a great job, as does the whole cast.

I had a professor whose accent was Northern English by way of Brooklyn. How difficult is it to master the sort of Frankensteiny, "by way of" accents? What would the toughest combo be? Finnish Mississippi?

I'd love to hear or design Finnish Mississipi, that'd be awesome!

Yeah, hybrid accents are interesting. Much harder to find a primary resource, of course, so it's usually a design job. (It's always a design job, but more so in cases like this.)

Have you ever just spoken in a fake accent when meeting new people just to confuse them?

Not often! I'll sometimes answer the phone in a weird accent though My wife hates that.

Do you speak any other languages besides English? Do you listen to other languages to gain understanding of different accents, or is the sound of a foreign language irrelevant to how its accent will manifest itself in English?

French, Italian, some Japanese. I used to speak decent Russian, but it's rusty. A smattering of Egyptian Arabic. A tiny bit of Swedish (my mother's Swedish.)

YES! It's crucial to start with the language itself when you're working on an L2 (second language) accent. The posture and intonation of your native language transfer to your L2.

I also work on teaching actors to sound like they're native speakers of languages they don't actually speak. One of my favorite things to do, actually.

I'm learning Swedish. Any chance you could give a quick tip on the "posture" of Swedish?

I love Swedish (my mother is Swedish, so I grew up hearing it a lot) .If you'll allow me to be a little Socratic (this is how you build up the skills, btw!) Check out this chart of Swedish vowel qualities and see what you can guess about posture from it, and then check your hypotheses by listening to Swedish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swedish_monophthongs_chart.svg

(The vowel space is a schematic representation of the space inside your mouth. Dots represent tongue height and frontness. Symbols to the left of the dots represent unrounded vowels and symbols to the right of them involve some degree of lip-rounding.)

Can you enjoy TV shows / movies without being taken out of the show by bad accents?

Depends how off it is and how good the story and acting are, honestly. Most of the time I can be carried away if those things are really engaging. (There are exceptions, of course. And if the story and acting aren't great, yeah, it can be really distracting.)

So that means you loved The Room right?

I haven't seen it! I'm so sorry! I know I need to.

Based on the the trailer for The Room, where would you say Tommy is from?

https://youtu.be/EE6RQ8rC8hc

I truly have no idea.

Here in Ireland our accents differ immensely from county to county (Cork and Dublin -100 mile distance) is this common in other areas?

Yes, but it's much more true in Ireland and the UK (if we're talking about varieties of English) because of the long history of settlement. American and Australian (and other) accents are newer, in a sense, and haven't had as much time to diverge and differentiate.

Holy shit I watched your video and I loved it so much! I've never seen anything like it! I also read your website and how you used children as an examle for accents! Too good!

My question is What is the most well known movie actor, who performs an accent, you've worked with?

Thank you so much! Joe at Wired did an amazing job putting it together, didn't he?

Hey Erik, loved your Wired video, I would watch hours and hours of that if it was available somewhere online. Is there any major success you've had in coaching that you'd like to talk about?

Let me talk about a near-success. I coached the accents and languages for a Jenji Kohan/Gus Van Sant HBO pilot called The Devil You Know about the Salem witch trials. It was an amazing script and cast, and the look of the thing was stunning. We made up an accent that evoked the sense of 17th century Salem but wouldn't be too weird or alienating for the audience. We also had a half English and half American cast, with a couple of Scots thrown in for good measure, so we needed to get them all on the same page.

There was also a Native American language called Passamaquoddy that we had a lot of dialogue in. That was super fun to coach.

would you please make more videos on your channel? That was super entertaining.

We've got some coming! Stay tuned!

What accent should I imagine your AMA answers in?

Gloucestershire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJuyUMmASTw

Hi Erik!

Are there any 'obscure' accents that you know of? I had a Welsh lecturer the other day and found his accent really unique.

Also I'm from Singapore, is there anything cool you can tell me about my accent?

Love Welsh. There are 7,000 languages in the world, so yes, there are plenty of obscure accents out there!

What sort of Singapore accent do you speak with? I'm interested in the accent/dialect discrimination in Singapore, with some really elitist attitudes coming down on 'Singlish.' I hate that kind of thing. There's no such thing as an accent that's 'better' or 'more correct' than another (when we're talking about native speakers of a language variety).

Hi Erik. Oddly enough I watched that video earlier today and I was hoping to see you dissect Hugh Laurie's accent in House M.D. Could you possibly give your input? Thanks! And thanks for the video too... it made me pay more attention to dialect.

Laurie's good! He got better, too, once he really started to get comfortable in it.

Hi, I really liked your video, your confidence as a professional really comes through in your genuine answers.

There was something you said about Joseph Gordon Levitt's french accent that I didn't understand. About his TH sounds, you said "He nails it, and it's too easy, that's hard for a french speaker" what did you mean by this exactly? Also, have you thought about making a youtube channel critiquing movie accents on a regular basis?

French has no dental fricatives ('th' sounds). English is kind of unusual in this regard, actually—they're uncommon sounds in languages in general (though Greek, Arabic, and Castilian Spanish have one or both of them). So non-native speakers of English often struggle with these sounds. Usually, even if they speak English really well and have mastered these sounds you can still here a kind of conscious carefulness in their realizations.

How does one find a good reference point for an accent? For example, if I wanted to learn how to do a Welsh accent, how would you recommend I source the audio / video to learn from?

Search Youtube for native speakers. There are tons and tons out there! You can also check out the wonderful International Dialects of English Archive. http://dialectsarchive.com

There are tons of accent acquisition materials out there you can buy, as well. Gillian Lane-Plescia's are particularly good, as they include recordings of lots of native speakers.

Hey Erik, Welcome to Reddit.

My question is, how did you get into becoming a dialect coach/teacher. What made you want to go into that profession? Were there any influences that helped you along the way?

Great question! There's no standard path, but most of us come up either through acting or through linguistics. I'm an actor with a strong and longstanding interest in languages and accents.

Influences: Check out http://ktspeechwork.com/about-the-work/ For nitty-gritty phonetics, but also really clear and accessible, check out the late, great J.C. Catford's A Practical Introduction to Phonetics.

All my friends hate me because I have trouble enjoying Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister as I think he puts on a bad accent. Am I right?

It could be better.

Hi Erik, can you tell us more about Prosody?

Prosody or intonation is the music of speech. It encompasses rhythm, how we divide speech into chunks, and, of course, the rise and fall of pitch. It's often neglected in teaching accents, especially in written materials for actors (though phoneticians have done some brilliant work here). It's just as crucial to the believability of an accent as the other elements.

How do I do a convincing Australian accent?

Find a good coach you click with! Find a model you like, and listen to it a ton.

If you're interested in really delving in, break it down for yourself in terms of three basic elements: Posture, Pronunciation, and Prosody. Work on each of them!

Hi Erik!

Do you find that regional accents are becoming more homogenized in newer generations as technology brings those different regions together through various social medias, entertainment, and communication?

I feel like my own accent is not nearly as distinct as my parents' (north Texas).

This is a popular idea, but it seems to be incorrect. Most linguists think that American accents, if anything, are actually getting more differentiated. Google Northern Cities Vowel Shift if you're curious. NCVS is an ongoing 'chain shift' in the pronunciation of certain vowel sounds. The degree and pace of the change is relatively unusual—the last time English underwent an equivalent change was the Great Vowel Shift, back in the 16th century.

In your opinion, what actor had the worse accent in a movie ever?

I'd go with Micky Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's b/c of sheer offensiveness.

why is a "southern" accent actually not in the southern part of the US? as a native of south Florida, I've always wondered why my accent is not considered southern.

Settlement patterns. You'll definitely hear accents with Southern US features in parts of Florida (panhandle...), but much of South Florida's population came more recently from Northern states (not to mention other countries).

What is the most difficult accent for American English speakers?

Entirely depends. Accents are identity. Imagination is a crucial element, as with anything in acting. If you have trouble imagining yourself as someone who speaks that way, you're going to have trouble. Sometimes cultural permission is an issue.

That said, accents that Americans haven't had a lot of exposure to are often tough. Welsh comes to mind.

Are Christian Bales accents really as good as people claim?

Depends. Some of them are pretty good. His 'General' American accent has gotten better and better.

Hi Erik-- I saw Jeff Parker left a comment here. Who is he and how do you know him?

Jeff is a brilliant teacher and coach, and a colleague in a methodology of speech and accent work called Knight-Thompson Speechwork. Jeff, you want to introduce yourself?

http://ktspeechwork.com/about-the-work/

Why can nobody pull off a proper Hawaiian Pidgin accent?

I've never heard anyone try! Can you point me to a performance or two?

Thanks for the video! Very interesting, though I still found it too short. As an Austrian t's really hard for me to identify the different accents. I bet my accent is all over the place from watching so many movies!

• As a non english speaker I'd like to ask what you think about Marion Cotillards midwest accent in Public Enemies? It seems to be a hard thing to do for someone french.

• Which actor do you think is the most consistent with their different accents?

• Do you get hired from non-actors to help them perfect their spoken english?

You're welcome!

I haven't seen Public Enemies, but my brilliant friend and colleague Tanera Marshall coached it. From what I remember hearing, this was another (all too common) case of inadequate prep time. I believe they decided that the character worked just fine as an L2 speaker, so they focused mostly on intelligibility.

Yes, I work with non-actors, too.

Is there any way a middle aged Pole can improve his English pronunciation to be more palatable to the native speakers? I mean given how fundamentally different the two languages are? For example Polish doesn't have long and short vowels and I still struggle to pick up the difference.

You definitely can. With adequate support and working in the right way (and also time, patience, and consistent work), you can most definitely achieve your goals.

You might start by checking out the DialectCoaches.com Pinterest Page (https://www.pinterest.com/dialectcoaches/) and the website for Knight-Thompson Speechwork (http://ktspeechwork.com/about-the-work/). If you’re interested in building a solid foundation for speech and accent work, look into taking a Knight-Thompson Speechwork workshop, either in-person or online. There's no better way to build a solid foundation for any kind of speech/accent work. And definitely get yourself a copy of Dudley Knight’s Speaking with Skill.

Hello!

I'd love to know what you think of Hugh Laurie's accent in house vs Benedict Cumberbatch's accent in Dr Strange? To me they sound very convincing and quite similar, but that might be because I am a brit, and they might sound very different to you.

I thought Cumberbatch's accent in Dr. Strange (coached by my friend and colleague, the utterly brilliant Sarah Shepard) was excellent. Not 100% perfect, but many, many scenes were full-on great.

As viewers, what should we listen for to determine if an actor's native accent is slipping through? Such as when a Brit plays an American or vice versa.

If you're a native speaker of the target accent, you should be able to tell pretty easily, even if you can't put your finger on exactly what doesn't sound right. One interesting 'tell' for both Brits doing American accents and vice versa is when some of those little, high-frequency function words like 'of,' 'was,' 'from,' 'what' slip out of place. They follow a different pattern in BrE than they do in AmE, so they're easy to mess up.

Is there a specific language or language family that is particularly easy or hard to teach or master?

It really depends on how far the language features are from the actor's native language. The further away, the harder. Navajo and Pashto are two that come to mind as being particular impossible to acquire unless you grow up with it. Left to their own devices, languages tend to complexify, deciding to start requiring speakers to specify all kinds of seemingly unnecessary things. Most of the major world languages we've all heard of—English, Spanish, Mandarin, Farsi—have been learned by large numbers of non-native speaking adults at some point in their history, vastly simplifying their grammar, making them easier for adults to pick up.

I've seen a few other requests for it, so I was wondering if you had any comment on anything Tom Hardy has done? He's pretty well-known for doing accents/voices so I'm curious about a professional opinion. Some films I've seen that stuck out to me, voice-wise - Bronson (some kind of working class English), Child 44 (some kind of Russian), The Drop (some kind of NY), The Revenant (old-timey American).

I loved his accent in The Revenant. I actually haven't seen any of the other performances you mention, or really any other Tom Hardy besides Fury Road (in which I mostly remember him as just being pretty mumbly). Some of those other movies are definitely on my to watch list, though.

Hey Erik. Thanks for doing this. What's your favourite part of the video?

I love the way Joe cut in actors commenting on my comments! I thought some of them were hilarious!

Do you do online lessons? I'd love to take them!

Sure! http://www.eriksinger.com/actors-1/

I liked your video! I speak French and don't struggle with pronunciation as I grew up speaking some Welsh (similar sounds). However, my French friends say what gives me away when I'm speaking French is my inability to speak monotonously - I'm very lyrical and that's not French. Do you have any tips for sounding more monotone/French? Maybe it's a breathing thing? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Not breath so much, just your native language's intonation pattern coming through. I wouldn't call any variety of French monotone, exactly, but yes—many fewer peaks and valleys than Welsh English! Spend a lot of time listening to recordings of French speakers and focus on the melodies specifically. Hum or whistle them instead of repeating the words (or at least before doing that). They'll start to go in before you know it.

As an Australian, non-Australian actors attempts at Australian accents are never even remotely right. Does everyone have this experience for their native accent, or is the Australian accent particularly hard?

I think this is a pretty common thing for native speakers to feel. Which is totally understandable, but also all the more reason why we, as an industry, need to pay more attention to getting this right. Beyond (often) being a make-or-break matter for the integrity and texture of the story, it's a matter of basic respect.

Have you ever worked with an intelligence agency?

No!

Of course, if I had, I couldn't tell you. Or I'd have to kill you if I did.

Hi Erik, really enjoyed the Wired video. I have a few questions for you:

-How on earth did you get started in this line of work? It seems like quite the mishmash of different skills and background.

-What's your favorite accent to perform and favorite accent/impression performance of all time?

-Finally, Rhode Island accent -- John Slattery, 30 Rock.

I trained and worked as an actor. It is indeed a mishmash of different skills, many of them not at all related. I feel incredibly fortunate to have found a profession that feels like it suits my particular weird mishmash of skills and interests so well.

Any tips on how to lose my accent ?

Well, first of all, you might think in terms of acquiring an accent instead of losing one. (There's really no such thing as not having an accent.)

That said, if you want to work on any particular accent, find a primary speaker who you respond to. And you can't go wrong working with a good coach.

As someone who grew up in Colorado I've heard before that we pronounce English most closely to the way that dictionary pronunciations dictate. Is there any truth in this statement? What are the telltale pronunciations of the Colorado accent?

Nah.

I'm from Alabama.. can you fix my accent?

Gee, why do you want to fix it? It's who you are and where you're from!

Eric, your video was awesome! If you decide to do more, would you be willing to speak in said accent so we can be a bit more familiar with how it should sound? Thank you again for doing this AMA!

Also, how do you think the Irish accents were in Boondock Saints? It's one of my favorite movies. Love to hear your input.

Sure! I did a bit more of it in the shoot than made it into the final cut. We couldn't get everything in!

Though I always model the target accent extensively when I'm coaching, I'm a little careful to do too much of it in videos and the like. I'm pretty good, but actors should always work mainly from native speakers (except when there aren't any, cuz we made something up!)

Have you ever worked with someone who had no natural accent of their own, and was it harder or easier for them to pick up accents that they needed for roles?

There's no such thing as not having an accent! An accent is jut the particular way a group or an individual realizes the sounds of speech.

I never knew I was interested in movie accents until I saw the linked youtube video a couple of days ago. I've seen it three times since then and was led here from the video.

Do you have any examples of good a acting performance that you enjoy in spite of a really poorly done accent?

How did americans practice foreign accents back in the day when you couldn't get endless source material on the internet, are movie accents more accurate these days than pre internet?

Glad you liked the video!

Peter Dinklage in GoT.

From recordings, usually. Painstakingly recorded by hard-working dialect coaches! Yes, I definitely think movie accents are getting better, though there's still plenty of room for improvement!

Hey Erik,

I just came here from the WIRED video you were in, it was very interesting! Since you didn't talk too much about it, can you tell the difference between different Asian accents? And if so, what's the most chaotic "Asian" accent you have heard being portrayed?

Have a nice day!

That's a pretty big area! There are a vast number of completely unrelated languages in Asia, so there are simply no common factors. (Though you do find a large number of tonal languages. The only other places you get a lot of tonal languages are Africa and Native North American languages.)

I'm from Eastern Kentucky. I went to law school in Alabama and now I live outside of Cincinnati. In the past 8 years, I've been losing my accent. Is there anything I can do to keep my accent besides going home all the time?

Call home! Talk to friends from back home on the phone! Make a recording of yourself when you're really in your native accent and listen back to it when you feel like you're losing touch with it.

You could also work with a coach to identify some of the features that you tend to lose touch with and work specifically to retain them. Once you have some sense what they are, it should be as easy as falling off a horse.

Also, get drunk!

I want to sound like a eastern European slav. Any tips?

Find a primary speaker (live or recording) and listen, listen, listen!

(And hire a good coach if you really want to get it down!)

As someone who aspires to be a stage actor, how do you recommend I start off with learning other dialects properly?

Get good training!