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What Is Voice-Over Translation?

Voice-over translation lays a spoken translation over the original audio, which stays audible at a lower volume underneath. Unlike dubbing, it does not try to replace the original voices or match lip movements: viewers hear that someone else is translating.

Example
00:00  [original, full volume]  “So the first thing we built was…”
00:01  [original lowered]        Translation: “Lo primero que construimos fue…”
00:06  [original lowered]        “…una herramienta para nosotros mismos.”
00:08  [original, full volume]  “…for ourselves, really.”

Voice-over vs dubbing

Dubbing removes the original dialogue and replaces it with new voices timed and often lip-synced to the actors, so the film seems to have been made in that language. Voice-over keeps the original underneath and adds the translation on top. It is faster and cheaper to produce, needs less adaptation, and keeps the speaker’s real voice and emotion within earshot.

UN-style voice-over

Used in news, documentaries and interviews: the original speaker is heard at full volume for a second or two, then lowered, and the translation starts. The translation usually ends a little before the original, which comes back up at the end. Listeners hear that the person is real, and the voice actor doesn’t imitate them.

The Polish lektor

In Poland, foreign films and series on television are often translated by a lektor: one narrator, almost always a man, reads every character’s lines in a flat, neutral voice over the quiet original. Audiences are so used to it that it stays common next to full dubbing and subtitles.

When to choose voice-over

Interviews, testimonials, documentaries, training and talks, where hearing the real person matters more than the illusion. Choose full dubbing for fiction, animation and anything for children, where the original voice under the new one would distract.

Questions

Is voice-over the same as dubbing?

No. Dubbing replaces the original voices; voice-over translation keeps them audible underneath and speaks the translation on top.

What is UN-style voice-over?

A voice-over where the original speaker is heard briefly at full volume, then lowered under the translation, and brought back at the end. It is standard for news and documentaries.

Is voice-over cheaper than dubbing?

Usually, yes: there is no lip-sync adaptation, one voice can read several speakers, and the original sound needs no clean dialogue-free mix.

What is a lektor?

The single narrator who reads all the dialogue in Polish voice-over translation, a style common on Polish television.

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Related terms

  • Dubbing

    Dubbing is replacing the speech in a film, series or video with new recorded speech, usually a translation into another language, so viewers hear the story in their own language instead of reading subtitles. The new lines are timed to the picture, and the music and sound effects of the original are kept.

  • Dubbing script

    A dubbing script is the translated dialogue of a film or video, rewritten so that each line can be spoken in the time the original line takes on screen. It lists every line with the character who says it and its in and out timecodes. The adapted text is what voice actors, or an AI voice, read in the studio.

  • Voice cloning

    Voice cloning is creating a synthetic voice that sounds like a specific real person, from recordings of their speech. The clone can then say new sentences the person never recorded, including in other languages, which is how dubbing tools keep a speaker’s own voice in a translation.

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