How To Be Multilingual When Dealing With International Clientele

Posted on Feb 17 2015 - 3:02pm by Editorial Staff

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Local and global both come together beautifully under the voice-over business. You may be a local artist from a local voice over recording studio but your talent and your voice is helping a business in another corner of the world! With booming freelancing options and the multitude of voice over job opportunities around the globe, one day or another you will be working with some international clients.

However, with international clients, you would need to be multilingual and keep in mind some tips to make the voice over session run smoothly.

Be Clear About the Job

As a voice-over artist, you will get plenty of opportunities to work with international clients and many times with languages that you are not that acquainted with. It is always a good idea to be absolutely clear about the objectives before starting the job at hand! Do not be shy in seeking out clarification. Make sure you have all the information of how to go about the voice-over in a foreign language. Investing more time in learning about the job is much better than just nodding in agreement and later messing it up.

Articulate Properly

You may be fluent in a foreign language but your international clients may not be. Articulate slowly and properly. Do not be in such a rush that your words are all jumbled up and the listener has a hard time understanding what you are saying. Your accent and also your extended vocabulary may be a little harder to grasp for international clients. Use easy and basic words to get your point across.

Professional Translation

Script translation can turn out to be hilarious at times and downright embarrassing at others, when done by an amateur who doesn’t really know the foreign language that much. For a smooth voice over recording session, get the original script translated by a professional translator.

Your international client might also have expert knowledge of the foreign language and hence will do a good job at the translation. Or they might direct you to their preferred translator. Either way, get the translation ready and in hand, before tackling the voice-over job in the foreign language.

Keep the script simple and short. No need to throw in large, pretentious words which sound fancy but may not sit well with the sentence.

Be Flexible

Each language has its own intricacies. When working with languages in addition to English, remember that translations in other languages often have many more words compared to English. If you don’t have much time at hand, you may need to adapt or shorten the original script as well as the target script for a seamless voice over job.

Go With the Flow

Rather than concentrating on words, focus on the message and the meaning of the script. The translation should be liberal, taking into account the take-away message of the script. Do not focus on just the words, making for a restricted and poorly translated document.

We hope that with these tips and guidelines, you will be able to ace the multilingual voice over job and will have a happy client.

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Editorial Staff at I2Mag is a team of subject experts.