Estonian Voice-Over Agency, Estonian Voice Artists & talent

Estonian voice-over production made simple

As an established Estonian voice-over agency, Matinée has been providing a professional Estonian Voice-Over Service and Estonian Subtitling Service for over 25 years. We offer a selection of the very best Estonian voice talent, at a price you can afford.

Whether you are looking for Estonian voice-over artists for documentary, advertising, eLearning, or telephone messaging, we’ll supply the best Estonian voice talent for the job. We’ll time-sync the selected Estonian voice-over to picture, and deliver the audio back in the file format of your choice. Or, we can lay back the Estonian audio onto your video and re-work the captions where necessary.

Check out our FAQs for more information and costs. To check the availability of our Estonian voice-artists and to confirm costs, please contact us today using the quick Quote form opposite. Or you can email project@matinee.co.uk or call on +44(0)118 958 4934.

Voice-over selection and quotation in just three easy steps

1. browse the voice-over demos below and click PLAY to audition each casting sample
2. choose the voice(s) you like and click ADD to your Quick Quote, or DOWNLOAD a copy
3. complete the Quick Quote and we’ll check availability and costs, with a response in just 1 hour

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Estonian video translation for Microsoft Skydrive promo

Microsoft required audio-visual translations of their Skydrive promo video in 38 languages, including an Estonian version. And because Matinée are both a voice-over agency and captioning company, Microsoft’s translation partner – Lionbridge, selected Matinée to handle all aspects of the video translation work.

First we undertook a review of the Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro video files, to work out the best approach for the Estonian video translation work. Then we produced an audio transcription, to include both a time-coded voice-over script, and the on-screen captions. Lionbridge produced all the translations and DTP work. We cast and recorded one native Estonian voice-over artist, taking care to match the existing time-constraints as closely as possible.

Our engineers integrated the translations, graphics and Estonian voice-over into the supplied source files, adjusting the animations to match the new Estonian voice-over track. The final Estonian version video was encoded as an H264 MP4, ready for publishing on Microsoft’s portal.

A short history of the Estonian language

Estonian voiceover talent agency

Estonian (Eesti) belongs to the Baltic-Finnic sub-group of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. It is most closely related to Finnish, Votic, Livonian, Ingrian, Karelian and Veps. It is distantly related to Hungarian and the Sami languages.

There are two Estonian dialects – North Estonian and South Estonian – which derive from two separate waves of Estonian people migrating into the region, who spoke different Finnic vernaculars. Both evolved and continue to be used, but modern standard Estonian is based on the North Estonian dialect.

The oldest written records of the Finnic languages spoken in Estonia date back to the 13th century, while the first book written in Estonian was published in 1525. Over the years the development of the language was influenced by German, Swedish/Danish and Russian.

Estonian became the state language after the Estonian War of Independence in 1919, but during Soviet occupation after the Second World War, Russian became co-official. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Estonian was designated once again as the only official language in the newly independent Republic of Estonia. Read more

Which countries have Estonian as a national language?

Estonian is the official language of Estonia. It is also one of the official languages of the European Union.

How many people speak Estonian as their first language?

It is estimated that over one million people speak Estonian worldwide, the majority of whom live in Estonia. There are significant Estonian-speaking communities in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Canada, the USA and Russia.

In Estonia around 67% of the population speak Estonian as their first language, with a further 30% speaking Russian. The rest speak one (or more) of 107 different languages, including Ukrainian, Belarussian, Finnish, Latvian and Lithuanian.

Did you know…

Estonian is one of the smallest completely national languages in the world. That means that it is used for all sections of society, including education, science, the armed forces, media and government. Few other such self-contained national languages have such a small number of native speakers – Icelandic is another example.
Estonians are very proud of their language and it is a fiercely guarded part of their national identity. They have a national language strategy, official language awards, and even Mother Tongue Day – on 14 March each year they celebrate the birthday of Kristjan Jaak Peterson, the founder of modern Estonian poetry.
The language is notable for its unusual use of three degrees of phonemic length – short, long and ‘overlong’. For example, ‘koli’ with a short ‘o’ means junk, ‘kooli’ with a long ‘o’ means school, while ‘kooli’ with an extra long ‘o’ means to school.

The Estonian economy

Estonia has an advanced, market-based economy, with one of the higher per capita incomes in Central Europe and the Baltics. It has a strong electronics and telecommunications sector, a substantial level of foreign investment, and strong trade ties with Finland, Sweden, Russia and Germany.

Estonia joined NATO and the European Union in 2004, and became a member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2010. It was the first ex-Soviet state to adopt the euro in 2011.

So… you’ve been given a quote for voice-over, and it includes costs for cleaning and editing the audio.
But what does this mean? And why do you need the audio edited and cleaned? This video will explain all.

Independent video producers talk about the reasons why they come to Matinée Multilingual.
It’s for the expertise of the staff, the range of services, and the superb customer service.