Mandarin Voiceover Accents and Talent Selection

CHINESE VOICE TALENTS: The Mandarin Chinese language is evolving more rapidly than any other language on earth. Hong Kong, for example, is currently making a fusion between Cantonese and Mandarin, with a different accent and dialect of Mandarin, a Mandarin that is in dramatic flux. Taiwanese Mandarin has a strong variation in both accent and word usage. And Chinese spoken inside the United States has also become a dialect. Below you can audition Mandarin voice talents for Beijing, Mandarin voiceover talents for Taiwan, plus other Chinese voiceover talents, including Cantonese.

The Mandarin voice-over talents offered by @International Sevices, for example, include not only professional Mandarin voice talents for advertising, but also the most prized talents with the most coveted of all performances - the anchors of Central Television. That company offers literally the most coveted style of Mandarin voice recording in the world. Rare, rare, rare. And, because of the economy, plus the fact that @International Services was the first company permitted to record unsupervised in China, the costs of these recordings are extremely affordable, even inexpensive and well worth the investment.

Beijing has a very limited experience in lip sync, because of the previous tight control of all media by the Chinese government, but will find good support for the following:

• Mandarin voiceovers, Cantonese, Taiwanese recorded directly in the target country
• Telephone voice prompts with Mandarin voice talent, Czech voice talent, and other
• Commercials for international television, radio and internet advertising with Mandarin voice talent, Czech voice talent…
• Mandarin voice-over narration and other narration for Power Point presentations
• Excellent Mandarin voiceover talent and others for product demos that make an excellent impression
• Chinese, Czech and Mandarin voicing and narration for internet television and intranet podcasts

Part of the secret to a good performance from fine Chinese voice-over talents, or Malay or Norwegian, is correct adaptation of the talent script. After translation, scripts are some 15% longer than an original language script. This is simply due to the differences in human language. Therefore, the talent script must be correctly adapted in order to be spoken in sync within the timing of the original guidetrack.

Tips on Korean and Vietnamese

KOREAN
Korean translation is provided for documents, technical papers, human resources and marketing. There are 3 main dialects of Korean: South Korean, North Korean and expatiate Korean for persons living in the United States or other English-speaking countries. Between the South and North Korean dialects there is a variation in word usage, but most obviously a significant difference in spoken accent. Because of the political climate between the two areas, it is recommend that the utmost care be given to identify the exact Korean target market, and use only translators and voice talents from the proper region.

Koreans living in English-speaking countries pepper their speech with anglicized words, particularly for financial applications such as banking, training or human resource materials. Expatiate Korean will be a bit more simplified and have many daily support-words in English.

Unlike Chinese or Japanese, Korean characters are becoming quite computer-friendly as computer operating systems around the world prepare for localization. Korean characters are actually an alphabet, and can therefore be read if the alphabet is known by the reader. @International Services, for example,  assists clients to become Korean-compatible, or delivers documents and translations as PDF files that can be read on any computer or used by any professional printing company without Korean fonts or capability.

VIETNAMESE
Vietnamese translation is provided for documents, technical papers, human resources and marketing. There are 4 main dialects of Vietnamese: South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, a “Central Vietnamese” (based upon centuries-old Chinese), and expatiate Vietnamese for persons living in the United States or other English-speaking countries. Between the South and North Vietnamese dialects there is a variation in word usage, and significant difference in spoken accent. Because of the political climate between the two areas, it is recommend that the utmost care be given to identify the exact Vietnamese target market, and use only translators and voice talents from the proper region.

Vietnamese living in English-speaking countries pepper their speech with anglicized words, particularly for financial applications such as banking, training or human resource materials. Expatiate Vietnamese for the U.S. will be a bit more simplified and have many daily support-words in English. Vietnamese voices for videos, training and U.S. voice applications often have a light American accent, rather than the pure “mother country” sound. This light American accent is accepted by all expatriate Vietnamese speakers in the U.S. Heavily English-accented Vietnamese is not as classy for multimedia.

Although based upon A-B-C alphabet, Vietnamese text has totally different accent marks for letters from all other major world languages. There can be several special accent marks for one single letter. The hidden computer code for Vietnamese characters often causes difficulties in web work by designers with incompatible software. @International Services, as another example, assists clients to become Vietnamese-compatible, or delivers documents and translations as PDF files that can be read on any computer or used by any professional printing company without Vietnamese fonts and settings.

German voice over dialects and translation

Q:  Looking for a bit more information on German dialects

There are 3 main dialect groups of German, with a few subgroups: neutral or “high” German, Swiss German, Austrian German.

NEUTRAL or “HIGH” GERMAN
This is the main and acknowledged “proper” German, also called “High German”. It is the German translation of choice for documents or recordings that will be sent to multiple countries, and also the language for legal and other official translated materials throughout the German speaking world. There is also one single, correct broadcast accent for German recordings. There are stringent rules for German grammar, spelling and usage, all emanating from Germany itself, and accepted worldwide. German spelling rules have undergone a major change in the last few years, and documents written in the “old style” have an outdated appearance. Translations in any other German dialect are not acceptable for doing business in Germany, and undereducated written German or grammatical and spelling mistakes will seriously damage a client’s image. A dialect German voice talent recorded in any other country for sales or training multimedia will miss its mark in Germany. Thus, it is not applicable to use a Swiss voice or an American-accented German voice on a product destined for Germany. The effect is rather like recording a voice in Mississippi for a New York commercial. On the other hand, excellent German translations created in Germany, and recordings with voice talent in Germany are received with pride and joy.

AUSTRIAN GERMAN
Austrian German is charming with a powerful personality. Their accent is distinctive, their word choice delightful and there is a very strong nationalism. Much of what today is educated Europe was part of the Austrian Empire, thus a great percentage of artistic and cultural heritage is directly related to Austria and its people. Many products sold across German-language borders, such as telephone systems, electronics, and manufactured goods, are translated only into High German for expediency and return on investment. The Austrians certainly understand High German. They hear it on television every day, and read it in literature, their magazines, and learn it in their schools. But for advertising and sales it is good to understand that their hearts will follow Austrian German.

SWISS GERMAN
One of the world’s dialects with the most individualism is Swiss German. With an accent that is as unique as it is strong, Swiss German is quite different from High German, and is beloved by its speakers. Swiss German translation is more prevalent for advertising than for business documentation. Notwithstanding the acceptance and correspondence always in “high” German, the heart for sales is in Swiss German.

POCKETS OF GERMAN
German is the 2nd language in Poland, Czech Republic, Rumania and Hungary. And there are a few pockets where German is the first language within a country of a different tongue. For example, in Brazil there is a renowned area in the mountains with German villages. In the United States, there are German pockets in Pennsylvania and other states, often associated with religious beliefs.

DVD and Voice Talents

Q:  What advice do you have for DVD voicing?

DVDs is an excellent medium for voice-overs, both lip sync and narration.  DVDs is also a great medium for subtitling.  Or, a combination of the two.  DVDs come in a variety of authoring styles, from simple straight video chapters, to broken peacemeal training courses that are comprised of high numbers of mini-audio pieces, silences, screen test voice prompts, and the voice recordings may include both narration and perhaps  with some lip sync pieces.  The effect of voice on DVD is powerful, and brings  great life to a media piece.  When translating the foreign voice versions of such peacemeal products, our recommendation is to be sure to use true professionals, highly experienced in excellently timed voiceovers.  Lip sync talents, even when used for narration in this circumstance, are excellent for this.  Not using such professionals may result eventually in a good DVD, but the time consumption will drag far far far beyond that by a true pro.  And the end result will usually not be comparable.  A true pro will breeze into the studio, and breeze out, saving a ton of money in the process, and rendering great recordings.  Thus, when seeking talent prices, try hard to remember that value of talent is not just the sound of the voice, it is the speed and impeccable results that you get from the great ones on the first “take”, not the 4th or 5th take.  The more complex the DVD, the faster and more professional the talent should be to save time, money and assure an outstanding, impressive final product.  Some of the greatest lip sync talents sound almost like “normal human beings” rather than beautiful narration voice talents.  Yet, of course, they sound “better than normal”.  Such “normal” voiceover approaches bring a humanity, a credibility and truthfulness to a recording that a beautiful narrator does not bring.

Voice Talent Categories

Q:  Please clarify the price differential between talents.

1)  Economy:
The “economy price” usually means using talent with home studio.  These talents are professional, and you will receive a good recording.  However, the selection of talents with home studios is limited, thus the choice of voice talent performance is limited.  Moreover, “home studio talents” perform multiple functions:  talent, audio engineer, editor and director. Therefore, recordings by home studio talents will not be as impactful as audio studio recordings.

2)  High quality:
High quality recordings include not only talent, but also audio engineer and generally a director/producer.  These recordings have more impact than home studios, because the talent can concentrate 100% on performance.  The professionals in the studio work together harmoniously to increase the impact of the performance, and accomplish your goal.

3)  Celebrity performance:
There are two types of “celebrities” :  national commercial talent and movie/television talent.  These are the talents that have recognizable voices.  “National commercial talent” do not have name recognition, but bring a familiar sound, a feeling of trust and confidence that what that talent says must be true.  The movie/television talents are usually known more for their face and their on-screen presence, and these talents also bring the power of trust and name recognition.  Movie/television talent have a powerful impact on sales.

The talent that is right for your project will vary with the amount of impact you desire to make.  If you have a training program for internal use only, or a project wish a short shelf life, the economy talent approach may be just right for your project. However, if you wish to make sales, or to sincerely boost morale, or increase the productivity of your sales staff, then #2 and #3 ave much more impact.  This is true for all languages.    There is definitely more quality control assurance with a studio recording with a producer/director present to supervise and 3 people (talent, engineer and director) to assure that you receive exactly what you need for your project.

Casting tips for foreign voice talent

When casting talent in a language that is not your native language, most producers and directors lose their bearings.  First, a foreign language can cloud the judgement, making us rely on sound - or rely on what the talent says about himself or herself - rather than relying upon the other skills we possess, that would usually be trusted such as our analysis of diction, performance, and overall effect.  When listening to a language we do not speak, is much easier to miscast a talent than in our own language.  Easier to choose someone who has an accent in that language, for example.  How would you know?  And there are so many talents who declare that they have a “neutral” accent - wildly inaccurately. So often our company receives demos for consideration of talents used by other companies, and when we pass them on to our Quality Assurace studio in the native country, they study the talent demo and say, “The pronunciation is sloppy, and the performance wooden.  This talent would never be accepted as a good narrator in this country.”   This most often happens with talents who live outside their native countries.  Often, these talents would not survive as voice talents inside their own countries where there is competition, and their prices are low to get work in the new country.  What makes these talents attractive to producers and directors is that these talents speak the language of the country where they live - this makes the producer/director feel at ease, unfortunately without reason.  The first way to assure that you have selected a true professional is if the voice talent makes a full time living with their voice inside their native country.  That is a sure-fire way to know a true professional.  Then, ask if they do national commercials - and, if yes, how many per year?  Talents who do national commercials have what is called a neutral accent, the most prized.  Then, assure that these talents are professional VOICE talents, not stage or camera talents.  98% of all fine voice talents are not camera talents.  They concentrate solely on their voice.  If the talent you choose meets these benchmarks, you have a fine, professional talent whose work will enhance your corporate image and increase your sales.

Casting foreign talent

Q:  This experience has been quite frustrating.  We recorded a video in Spanish and Chinese, and we almost had to re-record because the client says there was an accent.  We thought the talent was neutral. Is there a secret to casting accents?

Sorry about your problem.  It is an old hold that so many fall into.  The frustrating thing about accents is — who has the accent - your talent or your client?  Meaning, perhaps your talent was fine, but your client’s reviewer had an accent and wants his/her own accent in the project, perhaps without being aware?  Or, perhaps your talent swore to you that their accent is neutral, but is not.  Companies that deal in foreign talents on a daily basis, like @International Services, receive hundreds of voice talent demos all claiming to be neutral, when some of them have ferocious accents, and almost none are “neutral”.   Most talent agencies will upload any demos that sound professional to their ears, neutral or not, or will believe what  talents say of their own skills.  Perhaps the easiest way to assure an accent is to work with a company that guarantees accent, like @IS.  And the only way to guarantee accent is to use talent located inside the native country, in the major metropolitan area - a talent who is a regular with directors and producers of commercials and television for that country.   A popular talent who works for many many directors in country - especially for national advertising - will be a neutral talent.  Each country has its share of character actors, or stage actors who record voices part time but whose real strength is their face and body not their voice.  You should really start to worry about talents who live out-of-country.  For an accent guarantee, @IS offers hundreds of talents with guaranteed neutral accents in their Director Center on their website http://www.internationalservies.com/is .  The Director Center can also be placed on your own website, with your branding.

Adaptation follow up

Q:  How serious is dialect?

Dialect has an amazing impact.  The effect of that impact is divided by intent of your project.  If you have a corporate project where the goal is training, then there are merits to be balanced, such as where will this training be viewed and by whom and for how many years?  The usual accent for training is “neutral”.  It is harder to find, but gives your training a long shelf life, because no matter what direction your company goes, this training can follow.  When training is recorded using a dialect voice talent, your project will work well for persons of that dialect, but listeners of any other dialect has the emotional reaction “Well, that is not for me!”, so the impact lessens.  The impact does not disappear by using anothe dialect, but the message is dimished.  For advertising - such as commericals and radio spots - intelligent use of dialect is a very powerful tool.  The reaction “That’s made for me!”  is what nurtures the emotional impact to buy.  So, a neutral accented commercial has less impact than a dialect commerical - on each individual in the audience.  A Mexican voice will sell better to Mexicans than a neutral voice, and far better than Puerto Rican accent or Cuban accent.  The accent in Spain is so radically different that Latin American Spanish that will probably not sell anything at all.  Another technique that can be delightful is mixing accents.  If there are more than one voice needed for your project, selecting one from each accent group can be a charming combination and lots of fun.  Content often brightens with multiple accents, particularly content with potential to be dull (apologies to all training directors!)  However, if the subject matter you are trying to convey is extremely serious, such as safety rules or chemical mixing, the charm of multiple accents can actually hinder absorption of the message.  So, where mixing accents can stimulate a training session, mixing accents can  decrease retention for something that is extremely serious.

Dialects and corporate videos

Q:  On the last video we translated with a company, there were complaints about words used.  What is this issue?

The concept of dialect is small, but important.  In Spanish, for example, there are 13 dialects of Spanish that may affect any corporate video, subtitling or document project you may have.  Dialect affects you in several ways.  First, the accent of the speaker.  In English, a dialect accent refers to, for example, a Kentucky accent versus a New York accent.  A Louisiana accent versus a Boston accent.  Each of these regions have very recognizable ways of speaking English.  Yet, American is a dialect of English in itself — U.K. English is the real “neutral” English, and England also has a boatload of dialect accents inside its small country, not to mention across the Commonwealth.   There is an accent that could be called the “broadcast accent” for most countries.  For English, is U.K. English, so there is a broadcast for the language family (English) as well as a broadcast for each country.   Dialect also affects Spanish in the words spoken or written, as well as the sound of the accent.  Little things like “hammer” or “concrete” may be totally different words from one dialect to another.  Or, the difference can be quite major such as whether to use the formal or the familiar version of “you” — one can be considered “snooty” by one dialect and the other too aggressive or familiar to another dialect.  The closer the dialect you use is to your audience, the more effective will be your project.  So, although “neutral” sounds nice, it may be better to have “Mexican” for California, “Puerto Rican” for New York, “Cuban” for Miami, or “Neutral” for South America.  Yet, if your audience is comprised of a variety of listeners, the “neutral” is really the only choice - because neutral is the least offensive and most acceptable of all accents and written word.

Lip Sync Adaptation for Dubbing

Q:  What is the secret to lip sync?  Our scripts don’t match.

A: Lip sync is a bit tricky if one is not trained or experienced.  Basically, the first step for lip sync is to adapt the script.  When translated, a script reflects the new language, but the lips of the persons on-screen reflects the words of the original language.   For example, the word “Drat!” in English, move the lips for “d” and then a wide mouth for “at”.  Whereas the equivalent in French could be “Zut!” (pronounced “zoot”).  This is a closed-mouth vowel “oo”.  So, if recorded in French as “Zut!’, will not match the lips on screen.  In such a case, perhaps the word “Alors!” could be used in French instead, giving a wide mouth sound.  This will sync to the on-screen lips much better, yet have the same meaning.

Preparing a script for dubbing lip sync requires much experience.  The more experience an adaptor has, the better the results.

Added to the open-mouth-closed-mouth scenario is the fact that translations are about 15% longer than an original language.  Therefore more words need to be spoken in the same amount of time (which causes much lip-desynchronization), or the number of words must be cut back - without losing message.  “without losing message” being the difficult part.

Lip sync is the highest form of video translation, and is the most effective and the most valued.  Because of the script adaptation and need for specially-trained voice talents, lip sync becomes the most expensive of the alternatives.  But it sells the most, as well.  Non-English speakers are so accustomed to seeing movies and television in lip sync, that they often don’t even know that was not filmed in their language.  Depends upon the quality of the lip sync and the audience.