Video Translation vs. Video Adaptation
Voiceover scripts need a skilled audiovisual translator
You are a producer asked to deliver a video in two or more languages – let’s say English and French (as is common here in Canada). You’ve finished the English version; now, on to the French. Recording the voiceover, that’s down the road. First you need a translation.
There are three common ways the translation is produced:
- The client supplies a translation done in-house or by their usual translation vendor.
- The producer sends the script to a traditional translator, who is accustomed to working on text documents.
- The script is translated and adapted by a qualified audiovisual translator, who specializes in voiceover scripts and spoken dialogue.
Options 1 and 2 may seem cheaper in the short run, but are likely to cost you time and money down the road, and you may still end up with an inferior product. Why? Because script translation is a different process from regular document translation.
Good voiceover is conversational
Professional translators are trained to stick closely to the original, and to write for the page. But good voiceover should be conversational. It has to be written for the ear – easy to say and easy to hear. A voiceover translation should sound natural in the target language, and that requires some adaptation of style and idiom.
Other languages use more words
Most of the time, French takes 20-30% longer to say the same thing as English. (This also applies to Spanish, German, Italian and many other languages.) If your script is translated without adaptation, either you have to read it 20% faster, or you end up with a longer VO.
A while back, a video producer asked me to direct the VO recording for the French version of a two-minute animated promo. The translation had been supplied by his corporate client. Not surprisingly the French recording ended up longer than the English – by a full 40 seconds. That meant the animation would have to be stretched by more than 30%, and the two-minute promo would be closer to three minutes in French, stretching the attention span of the target audience. (“Couldn’t you have just asked the narrator to read it faster?” you might ask. Well, no. Not if the audience was going to have any chance of taking in the information.)
Adaptation, not just translation
Experienced audio-visual translators bring two important qualities to your script:
- They use a conversational style, and appropriate, familiar idioms in the target language.
- They condense and adapt the script to fit the time available.
The adaptation doesn’t alter the meaning, but finds more culturally appropriate and efficient ways to say the same thing. It makes it easier for your narrator to deliver a natural, persuasive performance – no tongue-twisters, and no speed-talking required. And more importantly, it makes the script much easier for the audience to absorb.