Everybody wants to say who they are and where they’re from. And the easiest and cheapest and most universal way of doing that is through their accent.
[David Crystal]
Hey, I’m Dani and I am a dialect and accent coach based in Edinburgh.
And accents are also just so much fun! I love supporting actors in mastering dialects & accents and thereby helping them deliver great linguistically fleshed-out characters on stage and screen. I also love to use my passion for English accents as well as my skills built up during university to coach non-actors.
How I became a dialect coach:
Growing up in a multilingual country allowed me to study languages from a very young age. By the age of 20 I had become proficient in five languages and my passion for languages then led me to study linguistics at university. There, I deepened my understanding of how languages work while studying even more languages. Fascinated most by the sounds of spoken languages, I specialised in phonology and phonetics. During my Master’s degree in linguistics at the University of Edinburgh I focused on dialects and accents in my research while taking various modules on English-specific sounds and dialects.
In my free-time I used to – and still do – research various English dialects and pester anybody willing to listen to my new-found knowledge. One of my favourite parts about watching a movie is to listen to the actors’ accents and think about if and how they could have improved their accent work. Finally, I decided to turn my obsession into a career and teach dialects and accents to people thereby sharing my passion with the world.
My experience:
I have led various workshops as well as individual coaching sessions, including coaching actors for Edinburgh Fringe Festival productions. I have experience collaborating with actors who speak many different native accents (Scottish, Irish, Spanish, American, etc.) and who wanted to learn a variety of target accents (Northern Irish, RP, Kiwi, General American etc.). My linguistic training allows me to research accents in depth and with technical expertise.
Dani Morse-Kopp 