1. What is Foreign Language Audio Dubbing?
2. What is the process of getting my video translated and dubbed into a foreign language?
3. Do you have testimonials and clients who will speak to me about your company?
4. Can I see examples of your Work?
5. How many years have your been in business?
6. What type of Translation services do you offer?
7. My client wants to do the translations. Is that all right?
8. How many languages have you worked in?
9. I've been told that the translation will be longer than the English. Is that true?
10. How will I know if the translation is correct?
11. Which is better? Subtitles or Audio Dubbing?
12. If you edit for timings will the translation be compromised?
13. Do you guarantee you work and what happens if I’m not happy about something?
14. What type of industries do you have experience in?
15. Why shouldn’t I simply work directly with a translation company?
16. What makes your company different then other audio recording studios?
17. Can I hear examples of your FL voice talent from actually projects and can I choose the voice talent?
18. What kind of efficiencies have you employed to help keep cost down?
19. Are Your Translations Certified?
20. Can you help us with the text graphics in the video?
21. How long does it take to produce a video in another language?
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WHAT IS FOREIGN LANGUAGE AUDIO DUBBING?
The term dubbing or in our case foreign language dubbing can mean a few different things. But for our purposes foreign language dubbing is simply the process of replacing the English audio in a video with a new foreign language audio track.
How the foreign language dubbing process would work with your video is one that has the target language voice talent standing is a recording booth. This person will be wearing headphones. This will allow the voice talent to hear not only their voice but also the original English voice that is part of the original video.
The reason for this is that while the audio is being recorded, the voice talent will be able to hear all of the nuances of the original English voice track. Including the speed of the voice, the tone, the inflections and any other characteristics that are important to help the voice talent stay faithful to the original English voice-over delivery.
Along with the audio, the voice talent will need to match from time to time the on-screen text that are within the video. This will require the voice talent to be able to see what the video is doing while they are recording. In order to accomplish this there is always a TV monitor in the recording booth for that real-time reference.
It takes the combined talents and experience levels of the entire foreign language production team to deliver the high quality product that you will be proud of. This includes the translation, bilingual producer, voice talent, and audio engineer.
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What is the process of getting my video translated and dubbed into a foreign language?
The first thing for us here at LRS Recording is to know what type of project you have. Due to the variables involved it’s important for us to have thorough understanding of what your needs and expectations are.
Once we have a complete understanding of your project we can offer advise regarding the best strategies to implement during production. We look for things you may not have thought of which more times then not will save you money or at the very least make sure you don’t have any cost overruns. This will also ensure the best professional product available anywhere.
In the case of a video project we would discuss what type of recording style the video production needs and what foreign language production strategies we would use for the various sections in the video.
We would need to receive the English script for translation and a QuickTime reference video for editing and timing. Once the translations are completed the bi-lingual translated documents are sent back to you for approval or sent to our third party verification vendors if you like.
The next step would be for LRS Recording to help you select the voice talent. We have almost three hundred voice talent in as many as forty languages, all of which you can listen to on our FTP site. One more note. All of our voice talent are local and come to our studio to work on the project. We do not send this out overseas to have someone unsupervised record the audio.
Then comes the foreign language "audio dubbing" recording session(s). What is foreign language audio dubbing? Well this is the process of replacing the English audio in a video with a new target language audio track. I have another article that goes into a more detailed explanation. You can see that by click AUDIO DUBBING ARTICLE.
So the audio production foreign language dubbing session is the process where the creative talents of the foreign language voice over, bilingual language producer and experienced audio engineers shine. We always do our recording work while watching the video in real time along with the English audio to ensure exact timings. This also gives the voice talent the ability to exactly dial into to all of the nuances of the original English voice over dialog.
Next up is the audio clean up, final mixing and mastering stages when the audio engineer works his magic of enhancing the sound’s equalization, compression and audio levels as well as final adjustments on audio placement.
Since a large part of our work is producing audio for video, we are often times asked to change the English text into the target language of the on screen text in the video. This might include lower 3rds, text graphics and titles, subtitles and then to DVD authoring in multiple languages.
In this case we would be working on the video simultaneously to the audio production. The advantage here is that we already have the foreign language professionals in the studio and they will proof read target language text for accuracy as part of our quality control processes.
Once the audio is finished being mastered it is then married or “re-tracked” back to the video either by LRS, or in some cases by you or another production company. We would then deliver your requested format back to you and would complete the foreign language production.
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Do you have testimonials and clients who will speak to me about your company?
The short answer is yes we do. Our clients have always been very gracious about helping us with testimonials and have always expressed interest in helping our prospective clients get a better understanding of what it’s like working with LRS Recording. We truly recognize the amount of trust you need to have in a company like ours and we do not take that lightly.
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Can I see examples of your work?
Yes. In fact we highly encourage you to do so. We believe that examples of actual work will quickly separate us from all of our competitors.
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How many years have you been in business producing foreign language media ?
We have been in business for 29 years and have translated and produced nearly 4000 thousand foreign language media projects in more than 40 languages for wide array of Fortune 100 & 500 firms, Media Production Companies and Ad Agencies.
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What type of Translation services do you offer?
We offer a wide range of foreign language translation services. Some of our clients only need a simple translation of a narrative script. Others need us to have us provide a total turnkey production that can take it all the way to mastering a DVD in multiple languages.
Foreign Language Audio Production, Editing & Mastering
Foreign Language Video Editing: Convert the on-screen text into any language
Foreign Language After Effects Editing: Convert the on-screen text into any language
Language Translation
Native Bilingual Voice Talent Database
Native Bilingual Producers Database
Photoshop graphics
Subtitling
Print Media
DVD Authoring
DVD/CD Duplication
Original Music Production
Library Music
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My client wants to deliver the translation to you. Is that all right?
We understand that your client may feel strongly about translating their companies content. Depending on how they are going about it will determine how successful it will be.
We have seen some companies use a bilingual secretary and others within the organization. This may seem like a good idea but is this really the best strategy? A bilingual employee is great to manage content and help to determine the specific terminology that is needed within the company’s culture. But they rarely have the professional skills and training to properly translate that content… especially for multimedia.
Often a client wants to do this for a couple reasons; Cost and/or Control. Both of these issues are totally understandable. We are well aware that it take and enormous amount of TRUST to hand your project over to someone you don’t know and get back a language you don’t understand.
The real problem is that if the narration script hasn’t been translated and timed correctly it will usually double the cost of the production. This is because we will need to speed extra time, in real time, in the studio to edit the text to fit the timings anyway. You can’t put a 20 second translation into a 15 second section of the video.
If you want the translated information to truly have a professional presentation—one that reflects the
caliber of your clients business—you should seek the additional expertise of professional translators that know the delicate balance of translation accuracy, audio timing and a colloquial translation approach that is needed specifically for media. Here at LRS Recording we have access to over 300 hand picked, highly specialized media translators, producers and voice talent in forty plus languages.
Having said all of that… If a client truly has strong feelings about supplying the translations we at least ask for the opportunity to check it for timings, make editing suggestions if necessary, and return it to them with all of the reasons why they are necessary. If we can educate them as to why it needs to be a certain way our experience shows us that they will be a lot happier with the final product.
For more detailed information on this concept please read this article.
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How many languages do you work in?
You will see a number of translation companies saying they can provide language conversions for over 100 languages. And while that may be true those projects usually have to do with print documents. LRS specializes in translation and production for audio, video and the full array of multimedia projects. It's the only thing we do.
In 30 years of being in the media translation business I've never been asked for more than 50 languages for a single project. But the reality is that the average number for a media project is around 6 to 10. We really don't need 7,000 translators spread out all over the world. What we need and have is over 300 hand picked, highly specialized media translators, producers and voice talent in 40 plus languages.
These professionals have industry specific credentials as well as decades of real translation and production experience. Having said that it's important to know that LRS Recording does have strategic professional alliances. We can call on them to translate your project into any language.
You can rest assured that you will always get a world class translation, perfectly timed media and the industry leader in foreign language media production to deliver anything from a simple translated script to a compete turnkey production.
For a complete set of the current available languages please click the Languages tab on the top of the page.
One quick thought on translating for media.
Getting your translation done by someone who does not have the specific translation skills for media can be a big mistake. This is not to say they are bad translators it's more about the translator not having and utilizing a colloquial approach of translation. Document translation does not require this type of approach.
Translation for media production is different than any other type of language translation and it's important to understand the difference. If you would like to know more about translating for media please read this article.
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I've been told that the translation will be longer than the English. Is that true?
Many people believe this. This is primarily due to the fact that yes its true if you “literally” translate English into certain languages the translation will expand. But if a translation is done correctly for media it becomes the biggest myth in the foreign language audio dubbing process.
This is because a literal translation is just that… literal. The problem is that a literal translation doesn’t flow properly and is not the way people normally speak. So a more colloquial approach is necessary to make the language flow naturally. This also helps a great deal to bring the translation more in line with the same length as the English.
The easiest way to explain this is ask yourself this question. Are there ways to make an English sentence more efficient and shorter? The obvious answer is yes. Think of it this way. In this English phrase:
“I will need to go down to the grocery store and it's too far to walk. Do you mind if I drive your car to get there?”
Verses
“I need to go to the grocery store. May I borrow your car?”
Now I will admit that this is a pretty aggressive edit and depending on the actual speed and timings of the English source you may not have to go that far. But if you needed to... It's implied that it's too far to walk so a car is needed and the rest is simply a more efficient way to say the same thing.
You can clearly see that there is a BIG difference in the actual time it takes to say those phrases but the original content and the meaning stay the same. This is only one example of many processes a professionally trained multimedia translator uses to get the translation more in line with the original English.
Our professional team of translators, native voice talent and highly skilled audio engineers have more than twenty years of experience in this field and use a variety of techniques to make sure the target language matches the original English.
For more information about literal vs colloquial translation read this article.
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