Every accent. Every tone. Every language. All human.

Accent, tone and language in voice over, explained

Three choices decide how a voice over lands before anyone judges the script: the language it's spoken in, the accent it's spoken with, and the tone of the read. Get those right and a listener trusts the voice in a second. Get one wrong and they notice it in the same second, even if they can't say why.

What accent means in a voice over

An accent is the sound of a place in someone's speech: the vowels, the rhythm, which letters soften and which ones snap. In English alone, an American voice over, a British voice over and an Australian voice over of the same line will make three different first impressions. None is better. Each one tells the listener who is talking and, often, who the brand thinks it's talking to.

A simple rule works for most projects: match the accent to the audience, unless you have a reason not to. A bank speaking to customers in Sydney sounds most at home in an Australian accent. A luxury brand selling worldwide might choose British English on purpose, for the polish it suggests. A global course for staff in twenty countries usually wants a neutral English accent that places the speaker nowhere in particular.

Native speaker or accent work?

Plenty of voice actors offer more than one accent, and for characters, games and animation that range is exactly what you want. For commercials, e-learning and anything aimed at people who grew up with the accent, hire a native speaker. Locals pick up a borrowed accent in a single word, and once they've noticed, they stop listening to the message.

The same goes for languages. A Spanish voice over for Mexico City is not the same job as one for Madrid, and Brazilian Portuguese is a different sound from the Portuguese spoken in Lisbon. Name the country, and the city if it matters, in your casting brief.

How to describe tone in a casting brief

Tone is the feeling a voice leaves behind. It's the part of a brief most people find hard to write, so keep it plain:

• Pick two or three tone words, such as warm and conversational, or bright and energetic. More than that and they start to cancel out.
• Say who is listening and where: a parent in the car, a nurse on a night shift, a gamer with headphones on.
• Say how they should feel at the end: reassured, excited, ready to call.
• Add a reference if you have one, and say what you like about it.

The tone words on this page are the same ones you can type into the describe box on the voice talent search, so a brief and a search can start from the same few words. The voice over glossary covers the rest of the jargon.

Choosing a language for international voice overs

If a video will run in several markets, decide early whether each version gets its own native voice or whether one voice carries everything with subtitles. Native voice overs cost more lines on the budget and win far more attention. Get the script translated by a person who knows the market, then cast a voice actor from that market to read it, so the words and the accent agree. If you need both, translation and voice over can be booked together.

Why real human voices still win

A real voice actor makes hundreds of small choices in every read: where to breathe, which word to lean on, when to smile. They change those choices the moment you ask, and they bring the instinct of someone who has lived with the accent all their life. That's what listeners respond to, and it's why every voice on The Voice Realm is a real person. When you're ready, post a free casting, name the language, accent and tone you need, and hear your own script read back by the voices who fit.