1. Paraphrase:

- Find a way to say the same thing but shorter by replacing long expressions with short ones that have the same meaning.

- Get rid of introductory words, the absence of which will not affect the meaning of the sentence.

- Get rid of the words used to address someone if it is clear who is being addressed.

- Get rid of tag questions like “eh?”/“okay?”/"verdad?”

- And so on. The options are numerous.

2. Regenerate so that the character says it faster, BUT, so that it sounds human, not like a rewind, and not out of the general flow of speech.

3. If the character in the original speaks without pauses, but logically there are commas in the text, you can remove the commas and regenerate the block.

What we do NOT do:

- Do not cut out the pauses that are in the original. They should remain. However, you have no need to re-generate a lot of times trying to hit the same length of a pause. There must be a pause, but it’s length in non-essential.

- Do not speed audios up in Audacity or other editors, as it sounds unnatural.

1. Paraphrase:

- Find a way to say the same thing but longer by replacing short expressions with long ones with the same meaning.

- Add introductory words.

- Add words that address a person the character is speaking to. Not even names, but something like “amigo”/“Viejo”/“Señora” etc.

- Add tag questions like “eh?”/“okay?”/"verdad?”

- And so on. The options are numerous.

2. Regenerate so that the character says it slower, but that it sounds human, not as slow motion, and not out of the general flow of speech. To do this, there is also this button, but you should be careful with it, because it sometimes gives strange results. It is better to increase the phrase due to the number of words, rather than the speed of their pronunciation, where possible.

3. If a character in the original speaks with long pauses, but the block turns out without pauses, or the pauses are too short, you can put more punctuation marks in those places where these pauses are needed.

What we do NOT do:

- Do not add pauses that aren't in the original.

- Do not slow down speech in Audacity or other editors, as it sounds unnatural.

Sometimes there're some audios with a different accent (Portuguese, Italian, English, French). That happens because the system we use can voice text in different languages, so sometimes it mistakes one language for another and starts speaking it instead. You can put another sentence in Spanish before the phrase and then cut it with Audacity. That way you’ll get the correct pronunciation.

If an accent appears (for example, if names appear or the phrase is too short), take any phrase in Spanish and insert it at the beginning of the phrase. In this way we achieve accent-free Spanish pronunciation.

For example:

After that, download the track by clicking on this button:

Then we cut the track using Audacity, leaving only the part we need, and upload the cut track using this button:

You can put another sentence in Spanish before (and sometimes after) the phrase and then cut it with Audacity. That way you’ll get the correct pronunciation

You can put another sentence in Spanish before the phrase and then cut it with Audacity. That way you’ll get the correct pronunciation

If you see any mistakes in translation, please change translation and regenerate the audio.

Please make sure that sound waves look similar:

Please bear in mind that when there’s a pause, there shouldn’t be any extra sounds, so the phrase could be cut up while editing

This:

is better than this:

Every part of a phrase shall be equal in length to the corresponding part of the original audio.

Also, you can’t just add a non-existent long pause to make it seem longer.

When the character is on screen, we’ve got to keep the length of the phrase as it was in the original. I know that in some cases (when we don’t get a close-up of a character) we can’t see their lips moving while watching a video on our platform. That’s due to the quality which is lowered on purpose, so that the platform functions correctly. We used to determine length by simultaneously watching a video and playing the audio, trying to guess if the phrase would have the appropriate length. Now you’ve got a lot of tools to make your work easier. Please use them. And yes, even “-2%” is a reason to make a block longer because otherwise it will result into a character opening their mouth and no sound coming out of it.

Some sounds may sound a bit unnatural and a bit robotic. Sometimes it’s caused by slowing down the audio, sometimes it just happens. For the sake of good quality don’t slow down these audios, better make them longer wordwise. If you hear that the quality could be better, try regenerating.

AND PLEASE DON'T CHANGE THE SPEED OF THE AUDIOS. For one, that corrupts audios. And for two, we don't want our characters to sound as though they were in slow-motion or playing in one of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies:

The sound quality is bad. It happens when the speed is altered. For the sake of good quality, don’t do this, better make them longer wordwise.

You can slow down audios using this button here ONLY when it’s needed:

For example, when someone has a manner of talking reeeaally slowly.

Or someone is screaming, and their scream is drawn out.

Sometimes, adding more vowels can also help:

Sometimes H is pronounced in phrases like “lo he hecho”:

Try regenerating. If this doesn’t help, you can just delete letter H.

/ʌm/ (gum /ɡʌm/) sounds more natural then /um/ (boom /bum/)

Please avoid making characters say /um/. Use /ʌm/ or /m:/ or something that fits instead.

If you see that some audio differs a lot from the general flow of the conversation, you may change emotions here:

It’s not your fault, but please correct it if you see something like that.

If a phrase comes out sounding like that, you can try to regenerate it a few times. In most cases it helps. If this doesn't help, you can change emotions (for example if it's "joy delight", you can try changing it to "joy calm" instead/ if that's a "scream", you can pick "calm", but add more "!!!" at the end of it)

Maintaining consistency in terms of pronunciation of names.

Examples: Sonia – Sonja, Enzhel’ - Anjel’ – Anzhel

Piece of advice: when you start the project and you hear a name for the first time, write down the way it’s pronounced.

Do this in every project for every name and you’ll never have a problem like that ever again.

Make it consistent. Names, abbreviations, names of places should be translated and pronounced the same way throughout the whole movie.

For example, there’s a noble woman. And throughout the ORIGINAL movie the same person keeps calling her “lady”. You could either leave her title as “lady” or translate it as “dama”. The point here is that we’ve got to maintain consistency and translate it the same way throughout the whole movie in Spanish. You can’t call her a lady in the first half and start referring to her as dama in the second one. You always have to choose one suitable translation and stick to.

If the sound at the end of a phrase is drawn out and then cut abruptly, try regenerating. To make it sound better you can always add another sentence after the phrase and cut it with Audacity (phrase + … + another sentence)

This happens when characters in a movie speak at the same time or when one character interrupts another character. You can check if that’s the case by watching the video. If a character's phrase is cut off, you DO NOT need to cut it too or delete the part of a phrase that is spoken at the same time as another because it didn't fit into the percentages.

Sometimes a part of a phrase, or the whole phrase may sound robotic. In such cases, the block needs to be regenerated

If you have a dialog between Maria and Juan and suddenly Maria says something in Juan’s voice, feel free to change Speaker from Juan to Maria here:

Please only do this if someone says something in other’s voice and LET US KNOW if you happen to stumble across blocks like this. One character can't speak different voices throughout the film.

Things like that happen, we’re all human and commit errors sometimes. Once again, that’s not your fault, but we would appreciate you correcting blocks like these.

Please remember that you can't change speakers in any other cases.

DO NOT change speakers if you think that any other voice may suit them better/may sound better in some phrases or whatsoever.

Please remember to watch the video and pay attention to the person(s) the character is speaking to and change the verb form according to what’s happening

Example 1:

- Por favor, no nos odiES

Characters were talking to two other people, so it got changed to:

- Por favor, no nos odiEN

Example 2:

- ¿CreES que esto seguirá cuando sean... mayores y competitivos... y tal vez incluso jugando en la NFL?

The interviewer was talking to two people so it got changed to:

- ¿CreEN que esto seguirá cuando sean... mayores y competitivos... y tal vez incluso jugando en la NFL?