4 Dubbing & Voice-Over Text Expansion Killers You Must Avoid

Text expansion is one of the great challenges to translation & localization in general – and an issue for dubbing & video voice-over. In the audio recording booth, text expansion that’s not addressed properly can make recording sessions go overtime, and even lead to pick-ups. Fortunately, there are a few sources of text expansion that can be detected relatively easily.

This post will list four sources of text expansion that you must spot – and avoid.

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What’s text expansion again?

Text expansion is a normal part of translation. For example, the idea of “brain drain” exists in Spanish, but not the pithy, two-syllable rhyming phrase. The closest translation is “fuga de cerebros” (literally, “leakage of brains”) which is 7 syllables long, and takes over twice as long to say in a Spanish voice-over session. Needless to say, this can become a problem if you’re recording to video and have a limited amount of time in which to “speak” a translated script.

Text expansion is common as well – it often takes a few more syllables to express a concept from a foreign language. In fact, it happens when translating into English too. Think of the wonderful German word Schadenfreude, which means “the pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.” If you’re translating it in a script for an English voiceover session, you have your work cut out.

There are four key elements in video projects that exacerbate text expansion, and which must be avoided – both in the scripts and in the video files themselves.

1. Acronyms

Acronyms are often language-specific. For example, it’s much easier to say “HR” than “Human Resources” – so it’s widely used in English-language corporate settings. Not so much in many other languages, which just use the full phrase. That means that this acronym almost always causes issues when recording localized skills training, compliance, e-Learning and corporate presentations.

This is true of acronyms in general – so be sure to spell them out in your scripts.

2. Parentheticals

A staple of document translation that’s truly deadly to voice recording sessions. Parentheticals take a term, usually a proper noun or user interface string, and provide a translation in parentheses. A good example is Japanese dubbing for an instructional video for software – if the software itself won’t be translated. The script translation might read something like, “Save as…（名前を付けて保存…）,” once in English to match the software, and then in Japanese for context. Effectively, the Japanese voice talent has to say the string twice.

Sometimes you can’t avoid parentheticals, but if your software or e-Learning video will have them, be prepared.

3. Non-stop audio

Translations expand – it just happens, in every language, and unpredictably. Therefore, leave some pauses in your English-language voice audio to be safe. It may not be possible for marketing content and TV/radio spots, but it is for everything else, including instructional, e-Learning and corporate videos. You can see examples of audio that’s properly paused vs. packed too tight in the following graphic:

If your audio is tight, you can create a version of the English with more pauses built in for foreign-language audio. Or, hire a localization post-production studio to expand your B-roll if your international voices run a little long. JBI Studios provides this service, of course.

4. Non-stop interviews or real-life source footage

Many people speak quickly, “eat” or mangle words, and use colloquial phrases that are hard to translate. And of course, this kind of content makes up large parts of documentaries, reality TV shows, news interviews and infomercials. If your localization project has this kind of content, try to balance it out with B-roll or leave tails in your source files for localization post-production editors.

Anything else you can do before the voiceover sessions?

Yes! Edit the translated scripts for video timing. This is the most effective way to deal with naturally-occurring text expansion, and the only way to make sure your foreign-language voice-over will fit in the studio. Naturally, script editing for timing is a service that JBI Studios provides as well. And in general, just be aware of text expansion – that’s half the battle. Know that it will happen, and that you may have to make tricky decisions regarding the localized scripts. As with translation, localization & transcreation in general, planning ahead is the key to delivering projects on time, on budget and on scope.