Why are voiced-over translations on television so thickly accented?

June 24, 2004 8:20 AM

Why are voiced-over translations on television so thickly accented? Are translators without accents rare or expensive?
posted by trharlan to media & arts (11 comments total)

The accent might help impart to the viewer that the person whose views are being expressed is a foreigner, like in movies that show Nazis speaking in English, but with German accents.
posted by alphanerd at 8:31 AM on June 24, 2004

Maybe it's just easier to find and use native 'X' speakers who have English as a second language; as opposed to native English speakers who may have 'X' as their second language.
posted by carter at 9:27 AM on June 24, 2004

It's a good question, and this USA Today story makes me wonder why "forcing an accent" on translation is a practice at all. Faking an accent seems like a terrible idea.

More entertainingly, check out Brad Pitt's odd accent from 'Troy'. Seems a bit up-market or British, perhaps a clue to the film's (and actor's?) possible assumptions about the classics being more for non-U.S. or more well-read audiences?

In my opinion, if the translated interviewee was originally speaking, say for example, Japanese, then an English translation should be in the accent of the broadcaster (say, some version of an American accent) and rather than in an accented version (say, English spoken with a Japanese accent) so they can indicate that the speaker speaks his/her Japanese with no accent. Likewise, if the interviewee speaks Japanese but was a native Australian and speaks their Japanese with an Australian accent, then Australian-accented English seems more appropriate than Japanese-accented English.

Another question... is this use of accents in translation mostly an American broadcast habit? If I, a native speaker of U.S.-accented English, am interviewed in English on Spanish TV and if I can and do speak Spanish with the accent of Spain, am I still made to sound like a Yank when translated into Spanish?
posted by Stoatfarm at 9:28 AM on June 24, 2004

Huh...when I read the question the first show that popped into my head with English dubs was Iron Chef...and the dubbed voices on that show have little or no Japanese accent. So it's not universal, in any case.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:33 AM on June 24, 2004

Actually, I've noticed on Iron Chef that only Japanese speakers are translated without accents. When one of the competitors is French, for example, his dialogue is translated into English with a French accent.
posted by Acetylene at 10:09 AM on June 24, 2004

I've never heard a fake accent on Chilean televison news, at least.
posted by signal at 10:59 AM on June 24, 2004

Everybody has an accent--it's just the ones unlike your own that you pay attention to. So no, translators (or interpreters) without accents are not more expensive, because they don't exist. But to answer your real question: interpreters usually work bidirectionally. If they sound like natives in both their languages, then you can bet they'll be more expensive. Otherwise they'll be speaking accented speech in one of the two (if not both: I once met a French/English interpreter who was Polish, and spoke with an obvious Polish accent).

On the news here in the USA, I get the impression that they sometimes have a translator (of unknown native language) work up the English rendition of whatever foreign-language speech they have, and then have a foreign-accented voice actor read it. This strikes me as trying too hard for verisimilitude. On other occasions, they're probably recruiting live translators from whatever country they're in, and they're likely going to have local accents.

Where else have you noticed this?
posted by adamrice at 11:34 AM on June 24, 2004

I very much doubt that the person you hear on TV is the same person who did the translation. Those are two different jobs with two different unions.

They probably pay someone to do the translation, and then go out and audition people to read it for the VO. So the question is why do they hire people with an accent of the original language? To add authenticity and enhance your immersion into the story. Would you want someone with a Peurto Rican accent dubbing your German films?
posted by ChasFile at 11:40 AM on June 24, 2004

It's an offensive and xenophobic practice that lies to the viewer. Moreover, it's an affront to qualified interpreters.
posted by joeclark at 1:55 PM on June 24, 2004

It's an offensive and xenophobic practice that lies to the viewer. Moreover, it's an affront to qualified interpreters.

oh please. lighten up. I, for one, find that a voiceover that still retains the proper accent to be the least jarring choice. I'd go so far as to call it a common sense decision.
posted by GeekAnimator at 4:23 PM on June 24, 2004

S.U.B.T.I.T.L.E.S.
posted by bingo at 7:21 PM on June 24, 2004