Localization into right-to-left languages – Arabic, Urdu, Hebrew, Farsi and several more – is tricky, and that applies to voice-over as well. It’s not uncommon to get to the recording studio to find that a script in one of these languages has been corrupted to the point where it’s illegible, or nearly so – and this of course leads to additional session costs and pick-ups. As an audio and video localization professional, how can you avoid script issues when recording right-to-left languages?

This post will list 3 tips to help you avoid surprises in the VO booth – and keep your projects on budget and on time.

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Why the voice-over script issues?

Voice-over and dubbing scripts translated into right-to-left languages are prone to corruption – in fact, most documents translated into one of these languages are as well. Why? Because text direction is controlled at the user level on most operating systems, and most document or desktop publishing programs have settings that control it as well. In fact, in many systems and programs right-to-left language support has to be proactively enabled for documents to be displayed properly.

As with most translated documents, scripts pass through several “hands” before getting to the studio – they may be opened by end-clients, project managers, DTP and layout artists, and QA reviewers. Most of these people are multimedia localization professionals with systems running proper language support. But it takes just one system or program without it to disrupt text direction settings.

Worse yet, text direction issues usually just change the order of characters or words, and often only a few of them. That means these corruptions are imperceptible to most Western eyes, but they make reading the scripts very difficult or nearly impossible for native speakers.

Avoiding script issues in the studio

So how do you make sure your scripts make it from your linguist, all the way to your director and voice-over talent, with no issues – especially if you’re not a native speaker of Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, Pashto, Dari or Farsi, or any other language that uses a right-to-left script? These three tips should help.

1. Know what to look for in right-to-left language translations.

If you work in document or audio localization, you can probably spot character corruptions a mile away, like the dropped accented characters in a Spanish voiceover script, or the “dots” that replace corrupted characters in a Japanese voiceover script. These dropped characters are easy to spot because they’re usually replaced by a symbol that looks out-of-place within normal text.

Redirected text doesn’t get “broken” in a way that’s as easy to spot – again, words mainly get re-arranged. So what are the telltale signs that something’s wrong? The big give-away is punctuation marks that are out of place, like a period that’s not at the end of a sentence, or a comma directly following a period. The following graphic shows the difference between a correct and a corrupted period in Arabic – the corrupted period is in red:

This is especially common on Arabic voiceover scripts (and scripts for languages that also use the Arabic script, like Urdu and Farsi), but it is also a good telltale in Hebrew voiceover scripts. Fortunately both Modern Arabic and Modern Hebrew have adopted many Latin punctuation marks, including question and exclamation marks, which are easily recognizable. Note, however, that these marks are reversed – so that seeing ? in your text (instead of ؟) is a sign that something is wrong.

2. Get a PDF from your linguist as reference.

PDFs embed fonts and lock text, so making one is an excellent way of creating a reference file against which you can check the final studio script. When comparing the documents, start with the punctuation. If that checks out, look at sentences to make sure that they start and end with the same words, and in particular the same first letters. This is a good localization practice in general, and also crucial to the success of subtitling and on-screen titles replacement projects, since the extra video integration step can cause corruptions if not done properly.

3. Be extra careful with left-to-right elements inside the translated text.

Localization often keeps English-language terms within the localized text, like brand names, person names, or street addresses and websites in the US. Because the text has to switch directionality for that string of Latin characters, and then revert back to right-to-left, this is often where otherwise clean text may have issues. Long left-to-right strings present a readability issue as well – remember that native voice talents will have a rough time switching directionality, so be wary of text with too many Latin elements in general.

Hire a multimedia localization studio with right-to-left language expertise

While the above tips should help you spot obvious issues, the only way to make sure your audio gets recorded correctly is to hire a multimedia localization and post-production studio with experience recording right-to-left languages. For starters, a veteran studio will have processes in place to avoid character corruptions, especially when formatting scripts for voice and studio applications, or segmenting them for markers. JBI has proprietary software for specifically this kind of script formatting. Second, a professional studio will hire native voice-over directors and QA reviewers, who will be able to tell right away if a script has issues, avoiding session delays and pick-ups – JBI provides both for every project. And finally, the support from a professional, experienced studio will help you to meet your release dates and avoid additional pick-up sessions – safeguarding your project timeline and budget, while ensuring high-quality deliverables