Oxford and LAMDA graduate with 20 years tutoring experience. Online accent and voice coach helping you to find clarity and confidence in your voice, leaving your listeners content. Founding Director o

Learn more about James

• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  I grew up in London, and have therefore spoken English for my entire life. My dad inspired me to enjoy the use of words, and I followed in his footsteps as an actor, using words to tell stories. At drama school, I honed my interest in accents, and I've always been fascinated by other cultures, having read Archaeology and Anthropology before training as an actor. I have subsequently formalised my training in the specialism of accent and dialect work as a teacher.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  No, and I would not attempt to. The reason for this is that the work I do is based on the principles of inclusivity and acceptance of all accents. To name one emblematic representative would not be useful within the context of my work. Rather, I would choose to embrace the eclectic cultures and sounds we hear across the U.K.

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behavior in the language that you particularly like?

  I like how the 'glottal stop' appears as a silent contributor to many words across many accents. It's not just within the accent of cockney in which we replace a 't' with a glottal sound: e.g. 'Betty bought a bit of butter'. It's use is far more complex, and takes great attention to detail in order to identify the sound within many accents.

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  As speaking any language matters to anyone. Any language allows for communication of complex thoughts and ideas, or needs and wants. Every language has its own character, which makes them unique and special. This is the same with any accent. If I transpose this question to considering accents rather than languages, speaking R.P. matters no more and no less to me than speaking any other accent. They all have a story to tell.

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  Transposing the word 'language' to 'accent' once again, if a speaker has not been exposed to a great deal of R.P., it can be difficult to identify which word belongs to which lexical set. Lexical sets offer guidelines for how to pronounce words with similar spelling, although sometimes an intuitive understanding helps to separate splits between similarly spelt words. E.g. the word 'goat' does not share the same two vowel sounds (diphthongs) as the word 'goal' in a modern R.P. accent. Even native speakers of modern R.P. might not be aware of the difference until it is demonstrated and explained.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  Perhaps an interesting observation, rather than anecdote, is the concept of trying to 'pass' as a native speaker of any accent. While this is the goal of many actors who are delivering scripted lines, there is often a sense of confusion as to the degree of effort one gives to certain non-English words when speaking in every day life.
  
  The word 'croissant', for example, might offer a conundrum to English speakers: should we completely change our oral posture and remove the 'r' sound, finishing the word with a nasalised /ɔ/, or do we keep the 'r' and the 'n', perhaps just losing the 't'? The sudden transition from R.P. tendencies to French can be difficult to manoeuvre, and were certainly tricky for me as a child desperate not to insult the sounds of the French language.

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  I am not a language teacher, but as an accent coach, any travel is helpful to immerse one's self in the sounds of another language. When visiting Cork in Ireland as a child, a man in reception at our hotel mentioned that our car was waiting for us outside. I had understood everything he had said up to this moment, but suddenly, I could only conclude that he had arranged some 'care' for us, and it had just arrived. This was eye opening for me, allowing me, for the first time, to acknowledge the complexity and beauty in the variety of sounds that come together to form different accents.

• What makes you a Superprof in accents?

  I like to listen carefully. Being able to listen allows you to recreate sounds with more precision.
  
  As a trained actor, working with accents is a part of my work. However, beyond this, I have trained further with Knight-Thompson Speechwork, accent specialists who delve deep into the workings of the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA), but also offer a method for the creation of a full, rounded picture of any accent.