German Accent Voice Over Recordings

Working with translation and production companies

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

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.

If you are a translation company, we will send you some helpful guidelines for providing us with copy or scripts, as they will need to be formatted correctly for voicing or for subtitling. If you are a production company, we can organise translations and create the subtitles in your preferred format. Voiceover recordings can be supplied as edited files, or we can remix with the original music and effects and layback to complete the new video soundtrack, 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.

Origins of the German language and accent

Germany in the past, was a series of tiny states and kingdoms with many different rulers. Even after the Thirty Years War ended in 1648, the kingdoms were divided into states such as Saxony, Bavaria and Prussia. Finally, in 1871 the unification of Germany was achieved under Otto Von- Bismark and by 1900 it was an expanding economy.

The language of Germany can be divided into four periods:

• Old High German spoken in approximately 770 to 1050. This language was spoken in Southern Germany and the surrounding areas of Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg. High German meaning from the highlands of the country, rather than the Low German that was spoken in the lowlands and on the coast.
• Middle to High German. This language took over from Old High German in around 1050 until 1350. At this time people began to settle further East and Germany expanded and brought in the East Central German dialect.
• Early New High German. This dates from 1350 to around 1650. This period saw the development of written German.
  New High German. This began in 1650 and saw the development of today’s standard German in writing and speech.

Many German dialects survive today that came from various Germanic tribes in the past and they differ from standard German in a number of ways. Other dialects exist that are closer to the German standard and are therefore easier for all German people to understand.

The German accent has an authoritative tone and is often used in TV adverts by a German person speaking English, to advertise German products such as cars. Listen to Angela Merkel, the German Prime Minister, speaking English with a German accent.