Foreign accent voice-over recordings in English
Voice-over recording in foreign accents are becoming increasingly popular, as it becomes more important to access
markets overseas. To speak to and identify with English speakers from foreign countries, it is far better to speak in their accent or dialect.
All of our foreign accent voice artists speak English with the accent of their mother tongue. Please contact our talent management team for help with English voice-over recordings, read in a foreign accent.
Matinée Multilingual have been recording professional voice-overs in over 80 languages for more than 30 years, and many of our foreign voice artists speak perfect English but with a foreign accent. This give us a rich source of talent when customers ask for foreign accents read in English.
We have 3 Pro-Tools recording studios and two video production suites, so we’ll solve almost any challenge that you care to throw at us. And our project management team will keep you updated at all times, and make sure your project is delivered on time and in budget.
Use the language selector below to choose the accent you require:
Can’t find the language accent you’re looking for?
If your required foreign language accent is not in this list, please call +44 (0)118 958 4934 for an immediate response, or email: project@matinee.co.uk and we will respond within 1 hour, and probably much sooner!
Featured foreign accent voice-over professionals
For our voice-over rates card – click here
Case Study: English read in an Indian Accent for Hotels.com
Hotels.com is a website for booking hotel rooms online and by telephone. The company has 85 websites in 34 languages, and lists over 325,000 hotels in approximately 19,000 locations. This is their summer holiday promotional video.
Arthi-I recorded the voice-over in English with an Indian accent after an exhaustive selection process as the client was very particular about the timbre of the voice required.
Case Study: English with a Congolese accent for Toilet Twinning Charity
Toilet Twinning is an initiative that provides people in poor areas of the world with toilet and clean water facilities, with the aim of improving hygiene and health. Donations pay for the installation of a toilet in family homes and local schools. The fund also helps with hygiene education to help prevent the spread of disease.
The charity contacted us for help with supplying and recording a female voice talent in English with a Congolese accent. The video shows how the provision of a toilet has helped one family and changed their lives. They chose Rita’s voice from a selection that we put forward. It is warm and caring, with a ‘motherly’ tone that matched their brief.
The recording was done to comply with strict time codes to correspond with the original film. The audio was then cleaned and edited in our studio, ready for the client to edit back to the video.
Accents from further afield
Most countries have dialects and accents used in different regions within their borders. In the UK we use the term BBC English, for a narration in English without any discernible accent.
So if you are trying to communicate with a certain region within a foreign country, it is vital to first identify the accent or dialect spoken in that region.
At Matinée Multilingual we have a vast database of translators and voice talent built up over 30 years working in the industry. We can solve almost any accent or dialect challenge.
Can a foreign accent be learnt or mimicked?
Generally the answer to this question is no. To be authentic, it is safer to use a native speaker from the region or country concerned. But there is an obvious problem here because we don’t know if the speakers accent is authentic or not.
This problem gets worse if we are being asked to produce recordings in a foreign language, but in a regional accent. We don’t speak the language, and we definitely can’t differentiate between different regional accents within that language. Not many people can.
So our advice is always to use a trusted voice talent through a reputable voice-over agency, who has a track record of producing voice recordings in their own language. They can then be trusted to produce recordings in English but with the accent of their country, with very little possibility of offending the listener.
