American speech coach says ‘sorry’ for her video

The American speech coach criticised for her attempt to illustrate the “Maltese accent” has apologised to those she offended with her two-minute clip. In a video uploaded online last week, voice coach Andrea Caban said the accent from “Mwolta” had the oral posture of a smile – an observation she later admitted might have been far-fetched. Adding fuel to the fire, in the video Ms Caban added in an East-European accent – which she insisted on passing off as a Maltese accent – that Malta was “right off the coast of Sicily”. The barrage of negative comments that followed flooded the social media until the video was pulled offline this week. Replying to questions sent by the newspaper, Ms Caban said she was sincerely apologetic that she offended anyone. “That was never my intention, of course. I am an acting coach and a two-minute video is meant to be a broad stroke, not a detailed accent breakdown at all.” She noted that for actors, accent acquisition was not always about absolute accuracy but about introducing a “flavour” of a place to an audience within the context of a play. Asked whether she had met any Maltese people, the voice coach said she had interviewed two people from...