My Cool Accent Coach

A playful, AI-powered voice assistant that helps users master global English accents — British, American, Kiwi, and Scottish — through real-time feedback and interactive practice.

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Inspiration

The idea came from my daughter, who wants to learn voice acting, but she is only 12, and I couldn't find any classes for her. So, I decided to build a playful and practical tool to help her improve her speaking skills. This could be a fun app for English-learners as well, who want to focus on their accent clarity without getting bogged down with the grammar.

What it does

My Cool Accent Coach is an interactive AI-powered voice assistant named Lily who helps users master global English accents — British, American, Kiwi, and Scottish — through:

  • Real-time accent modelling using ElevenLabs voices
  • Guided pronounciation practice
  • Accent-specific feedback like "Try softening the T here" or "That R was perfect!"

How we built it

  • Bolt.new was used to build the app
  • ElevenLabs provides realistic accent voices, mapped per accent with features: Text-to-Speech and Conversational AI Agent
  • Netlify was used to deploy the app and to host a serverless function to handle the ElevenLabs API key management
  • React with TailwindCSS, Vite and TypeScript is used for a responsive UI

Challenges we ran into

  • Passing the selected accent into the agent session dynamically
  • Ensuring the agent didn’t ask for accent info again when it was already set
  • Managing offscreen rendering issues with the voice widget

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a multi-accent agent that feels human, supportive, and clear using high-quality voices from ElevenLabs
  • Designed an interface that feels fun and rewarding with interactive cues

What we learned

  • How to integrate ElevenLabs with Bolt
  • How to keep an AI voice agent natural and context-aware
  • That I can use Netlify serverless function to manage API key to avoid using Supabase
  • Tailwind tricks for layout, animation, and playful visuals

What's next for My Cool Accent Coach

  • Expand to other accents (e.g., Irish, Australian, South African)
  • Add voice recording feature to compare the user saying the example sentences with the text-to-speech ElevenLabs voice, then provide feedback on the user's pronounciation.
  • Introduce custom sentences or upload-your-own script practice

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