Have any of you ever been paid to do a professional voice recording, where the text had bad grammar in it? Do you just go ahead and read it as it is, knowing full well that it’s grammatically incorrect?
There have been times where I’ve tried to correct what I’m reading, only to be stopped and asked to “Read it as it is” because that’s what the client has asked for.
I have a couple of takes on this. On the one hand, especially if there are many mistakes in the script, I’m not being paid to correct, so why bother? On the other hand, that’s my voice reading it, so wouldn’t it reflect bad on me to record incorrect English?
We’ve talked about this before, I think, and how I refused to do it a year or so ago. Now that I’ve thrown my integrity out the window, I’ll read whatever is given to me. If that’s what the client wants read, and that’s what they’re paying me to read, I’ll read it. Of course, it usually takes twice as long to record because my brain auto-corrects and we have to stop and start again so I can read the garbage the client provided.
I recently told the manager that it is absurd the client will pay so much money for production but won’t pay money for development (proper writing and editing). From his response, it sounded like he was laughing all the way to the bank, too.
You’re right on one thing: We’re not being paid to edit, we’re being paid to read. In the end, the only people who will know it is your voice is the few people you are more intimate with and who know you do that kind of work. At least, that’s how I justify it.
superking: No examples needed, really. Just open your school book to page 20 and read the crap that got printed there.
There’s a message that plays in the Taichung HSR that gets to me every time. As you ride the escalator, you hear English instructions that say “The handrail has been sterilized periodically”. It seems to me that there is something wrong with that sentence. Shouldn’t it be “The handrail is sterilized periodically”? I’m sure the speaker knew that, but she wasn’t being paid to correct it.
It’s one thing to see errors in a book - that could have been written by a non native speaker. But when you hear recordings that are clearly from native English speakers, it seems to amplify the issue even more. Maybe it’s just me. :eh:
Oh, I love that sentence! I repeat it over and over again! They clean the handrails periodically! I think it’s odd to use “periodically” – possibly better: The handrails are sterilized throughout the day, or something more natural.
I completely agree about having a native speaker read bad grammar being far worse than having bad grammar printed in a book. Sigh. Not much we can do. If we refuse the work or put up a stink in the studio, they’ll just find other people who will do it. The only way change will happen is if the client is told how bad their script is.
Did you read the Chinese ad, too? That was fun. I was given a script written in pinyin (with lots of mistakes) and the engineer also fed me lines at native-speaker speed – so of course I fouled it up. Apparently, that’s what the client wanted. So, one client got bad English and another got bad Chinese.
While you may find such words clunky, you are unable to say the grammar is bad. You can say, ‘words I wouldn’t use, given my age, place of birth, understanding of tenses.’ Hence why I asked for examples. I wanna know what sorts of stuff you are referencing. I was assuming you were recording sentences like, “me ball so fun, me like play ball when day is sunny.” You have given an example of a style issue (or tense style issue), in my mind. And maybe, just maybe, the handrail HAS only been sterilized periodically.
[quote=“Adam_CLO”]Have any of you ever been paid to do a professional voice recording, where the text had bad grammar in it? Do you just go ahead and read it as it is, knowing full well that it’s grammatically incorrect?
There have been times where I’ve tried to correct what I’m reading, only to be stopped and asked to “Read it as it is” because that’s what the client has asked for.[/quote]
I’d ask them why they want a recording with bad grammar.
The China Airlines safety recording exhibits this phenomenon. The male flight attendant’s voice has been overdubbed with a native speaker’s, but the voice actor has followed the grammar of the actor in the video, leading to a very jarring experience of perfectly pronounced Chinglish.
Ok, here’s a script I was given recently. A lot of it looks like it just came out of Google Translate:
[quote][Company Name] have been going on Vulcanized and Cold-cemented
shoes for 26 years, we continuously innovate new technology
and materials to the market and raise up the ability since
We’ve cooperated with many Brands, such as Converse,
Adidas, K-Swiss, Caterpiller, G-Star, Kenzo… etc., and been
trusted.[/quote]
[quote][Company Name] have been going on Vulcanized and Cold-cemented
shoes for 26 years, we continuously innovate new technology
and materials to the market and raise up the ability since
We’ve cooperated with many Brands, such as Converse,
Adidas, K-Swiss, Caterpiller, G-Star, Kenzo… etc., and been
trusted.[/quote]
Imagine trying to read that with a straight face.[/quote]
[quote=“Adam_CLO”]Ok, here’s a script I was given recently. A lot of it looks like it just came out of Google Translate:
[quote][Company Name] have been going on Vulcanized and Cold-cemented
shoes for 26 years, we continuously innovate new technology
and materials to the market and raise up the ability since
We’ve cooperated with many Brands, such as Converse,
Adidas, K-Swiss, Caterpiller, G-Star, Kenzo… etc., and been
trusted.[/quote]
Imagine trying to read that with a straight face.[/quote] So typical!
It doesn’t look like machine translation to me… looks more like human-produced Chinglish.
[quote=“Adam_CLO”]Hah, Jenny and I record at the same place!
There’s a message that plays in the Taichung HSR that gets to me every time. As you ride the escalator, you hear English instructions that say “The handrail has been sterilized periodically”. It seems to me that there is something wrong with that sentence. Shouldn’t it be “The handrail is sterilized periodically”? I’m sure the speaker knew that, but she wasn’t being paid to correct it.
It’s one thing to see errors in a book - that could have been written by a non native speaker. But when you hear recordings that are clearly from native English speakers, it seems to amplify the issue even more. Maybe it’s just me. :eh:[/quote]
[quote=“Adam_CLO”]Have any of you ever been paid to do a professional voice recording, where the text had bad grammar in it? Do you just go ahead and read it as it is, knowing full well that it’s grammatically incorrect?
There have been times where I’ve tried to correct what I’m reading, only to be stopped and asked to “Read it as it is” because that’s what the client has asked for.
I have a couple of takes on this. On the one hand, especially if there are many mistakes in the script, I’m not being paid to correct, so why bother? On the other hand, that’s my voice reading it, so wouldn’t it reflect bad on me to record incorrect English?[/quote]
I was going to do this for a school in Japan, but they wanted me to download a whole bunch of other software. Didn’t really trust them after that. An English teaching agency (especially one run by a native speaker) should have documents with proper grammar. The occasional typo is understandable, but the grammar shouldn’t have been that FUBAR. Didn’t want to download additional programs after dealing with a litany of viruses either.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“Adam_CLO”]Ok, here’s a script I was given recently. A lot of it looks like it just came out of Google Translate:
[quote][Company Name] have been going on Vulcanized and Cold-cemented
shoes for 26 years, we continuously innovate new technology
and materials to the market and raise up the ability since
We’ve cooperated with many Brands, such as Converse,
Adidas, K-Swiss, Caterpiller, G-Star, Kenzo… etc., and been
trusted.[/quote]
Imagine trying to read that with a straight face.[/quote] So typical!
It doesn’t look like machine translation to me… looks more like human-produced Chinglish.[/quote]
I agree, Chris, that this is likely human produced. I read almost the exact same script (very similar) on a Chinese produced exam where you were supposed to spot the translation errors, but this was a trick question where the correct answer was that there were no errors in this selection. Really. They couldn’t understand why so many native English speaking translators has so many problems with their exam!
I was asked by someone else just to look at the English–not what it was translated from–to be sure it was as bad as he thought it was and he still actually did know what he was talking about. Poor guy. He was assigned to help with quality control for the exam, but he wasn’t allowed to change anything written by the Chinese exam writers–only make suggestions. Instead of taking his suggestions, they were questioning his knowledge of his own native language.
Don’t do it woman! Take your integrity back before you end up in some lexical brothel in Gansu![/quote]
At the moment, these projects add a little spice to my life and put a little cash in my pocket. :+) BigJohn, don’t worry…I know which window I threw my integrity out so I can find it again in a few months.
Thankfully I haven’t been asked by the recording studio to do anything that bad. Adam – that’s pretty crap. If you can, you have to milk that out. Read it a few times for practice and then keep making mistakes. Turn that from a 10 minute project into an hour-long one. (And I thought that PSA about paying the land tax and then the Life is Ch***, Ch*** is life! line was bad!)
I’m always being asked to record for my students. Problem is, the story or other crap they need me to record for them is ALWAYS 100% rubbish.
I can’t do it. My brain doesn’t function in that way. There’s an auto checking script running in the background that makes it almost impossible to read the stuff they give me. I have to take the time to edit, and rewrite the whole document before I can simply read it straight through. Sad part is, they are usually written by my boss, who has a “Masters” degree in Engrish from a Taiwan looniversity. So there’s the whole ‘face’ angle. I’m basically screwed. I can’t do the proper editing without making him lose face and I can’t read anything without first fixing the mistakes.
Exactly, you can’t change it because somebody along the way will lose face. The money has been taken, the deal deal has been done and you are the last cog in the Lowest Common Denominator chain.
This happened to me in China. I had no idea what to do. I was given at least 20 pages of mostly completely incomprehensible Chinglish and asked to quickly go over it and fix the mistakes, and then I was to record it. They expected me to take about half an hour to make these minor edits. More than half the material was so bad that I could not even figure out what they were trying to say. After struggling with it for about 2 hours with the help of two native speakers of Chinese who would read the Chinese version and then try to explain what it meant, I realized that my university bosses and the company reps were getting very, very annoyed. In the end I gave up and read it as it was. It was all my fault for taking so long to correct it, evidently.
I’ve had to sit and listen to this shite in dozens of company presentations, pretending to pay attention. It has got better in recent years - many companies have, in fact, realised that foreign buyers aren’t interested in the colour of the founder’s hair or the quality of his wife’s family. But not so long ago this kind of self-indulgent wibble was the norm, and it did actually serve a useful purpose: a company that can’t be bothered to hire a proper translator will, guaranteed, have pisspoor quality control, so these bozos never heard from us again.
:roflmao:
Chinese businessman [blushing beetroot red] : Um, I like something special.
Integrity-free western woman [stubbing out her cigarette and appraising him suspiciously]: That’s going to cost you. Let’s have a look.
[Businessman roots around in his pocket and furtively hands over script]
Western woman: [reading and trying to keep her lunch down] : OK, I’ll do it. Just this once, since you’re a good customer. But I don’t normally do stuff like that. It’s really going to cost you.
[Businessman points to script] : And I really want you do it exactly like this.
Western woman, to self : FFS. Only three more years and I’ll have saved enough to get out of this place.
I’m going to file that word away for future reference.
So typical! 