Filipino Voice Over Agency

Working with translation and production companies

Adding audio visual services to your mix will create many new sales opportunities for your team.

Matinée has over 40 years of experience working alongside translation and production companies. So you can be sure our project managers are fully at home with the technical process of supervising and delivering localised material, in a professional and timely manner. We can add translation, voiceover and subtitling to your company’s offering, which will appear seamless to your clients and yet mesh easily with the processes in your own departments.

If you are a translation company, we will send you some helpful guidelines when providing us with copy or scripts, and we can either work from your translations or handle the whole project for you, including translation. If you are a production company, we will provide translations or subtitles in your preferred format; whether that’s subtitle-ready files (XML or PNG), or burnt in as fully-subtitled videos. Voiceover recordings can be supplied as edited files, or we can remix with the original music and effects and provide a finished video, ready to go.

Working seamlessly with your team, we can take on all or part of the process, according to your needs, and help widen your service offering.

A short history on the Filipino language

The Filipino language belongs to the Central Philippine sub-group of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family of languages. It is the formal name for Tagalog, one of two official languages of the Philippines.

The origins of Tagalog can be traced back around 5,000 years to the arrival of the first wave of Indonesians to the islands; Tagalog has been shown to have some common roots with Bahasa Indonesian.

When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century there was no common language of the Philippines – there were many different languages (and different dialects of those). Spanish didn’t take hold, but brought many loanwords to the local languages. Indeed, over the years the Philippines’ position as a major trading hub brought it under the influence of many other languages, including Chinese.

When the Philippines became a republic in the 20th century there was a complicated (and at times controversial) process of establishing a standardised national language – first called Pilipino, then Filipino – but essentially a version of Tagalog (the country’s most widely spoken language) based on the Manila dialect.

Which countries have Filipino as a national language?

Filipino is one of two official languages of the Philippines, along with English. There are over 100 other languages spoken in the Philippines, but the 12 recognised regional languages are Bicol, Sama-Bajaw, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Kinaray-a, Maguindanao, Maranao, Pangasinan, Surigaonon, Tausug, Waray-Waray and Zamboangueño Chavacano.

How many people speak Filipino as their first language?

It is estimated that Filipino (Tagalog) is spoken as a first language by around a third of the population of the Philippines – over 22 million people. A further 65 million people speak it as their second language.

Did you know…

• Before the Spanish brought their Latin script to the Philippines in the 16th century, the local people used a script called baybayin or alibata for their written languages.
• The first Tagalog alphabet, developed in the 1930s, was called the abakada. It consisted of 20 letters – five vowels and 15 consonants – and was specifically designed to represent the sounds of the language.
• The next Tagalog alphabet was issued by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports in 1976. It was called Pinagyamang Alpabeto (Enriched Alphabet), and included a further 11 consonants.
• Today the Modern Filipino Alphabet (Makabagong Alpabetong Filipino) consists of 28 letters. It was established in 1987 during the Aquino presidency.

The Philippines economy

The Philippines, a newly industrialised country, has the 40th largest economy in the world. It is one of Asia’s fastest growing economies, and has been named as one of the Tiger Cub Economies (along with Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand – so-called because they are following in the export-driven footsteps of the original Four Asian Tigers of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan). Goldman Sachs has identified the Philippines as one of the N-11 (Next Eleven) economies, and estimates that it will be the 14th largest economy in the world by 2050.

Major exports include electronic products, transport equipment, clothing, copper products and petroleum products.