Slovenian 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 Slovenian language

Slovenian (Slovene) belongs to the western group of the South Slavic branch of the Indo-European family of languages, along with Serbo-Croatian. It is largely mutually intelligible with the Kajkavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian, and shares linguistic characteristics with other South Slavic (as well as West Slavic) languages.

As with all Slavic languages, Slovenian evolved from Old Church Slavonic. The earliest written records of a distinct Slovenian language are the Freising Manuscripts, which date back to around 1000 AD. The first Slovenian translation of the bible appeared in 1584.

Standard Slovenian developed from central dialects from the 18th century onwards. Up until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, however, it was only the language of the common people in present-day Slovenia; the elite spoke German.

Slovenian was one of the official languages of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Since Slovenia gained independence in 1991, Slovenian has been official throughout all areas of public life.

Which countries have Slovenian as a national language?

Slovenian is the official language of Slovenia, and is also recognised as a regional language in Austria, Hungary and Italy. It has been one of the official languages of the European Union since Slovenia’s admission in 2004.

How many people speak Slovenian as their first language?

It is estimated that approximately 2.5 million people speak Slovenian as their first language. Most of these live in Slovenia but there are also significant Slovenian-speaking communities in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia.

Did you know…

• There are many Slovenian dialects, which are usually divided into eight major groups, each with a number of sub-dialects. Although the use of regional varieties has declined, some have retained their distinctiveness and can even be difficult for other Slovenian speakers to understand (for example the dialect spoken in the Italian province of Udine).
• There is a marked difference between standard written Slovenian and the standard spoken language. The standard written version, although based on central dialects, is to some degree an artificial construct. It is taught in schools and so used by educated Slovenians – but it differs in many ways from the language spoken by them.

The Slovenian economy

Slovenia, with its well-educated work force, excellent infrastructure and strategic location at a major transport crossroads, has had one of the most stable economic transitions of all the Central European countries.

It was the first new member of the European Union to adopt the euro (in 2007), and joined the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2010. Around two thirds of the population is employed in the service sector.