Dubbing only for children[link]

In the Netherlands, in the majority of cases Dutch versions are only made for children and youth related films. Animation movies are shown in theaters with Dutch dubbing, but usually those cinemas with more screening rooms also provide the original subtitled version; that was the case for movies like ''Babe'', ''Atlantis: The Lost Empire'', ''Finding Nemo'', ''Cars'', ''Shrek the Third'', ''Ratatouille'', ''Kung Fu Panda'' or ''WALL-E''.

Since Belgium is a multilingual country, films are shown in Dutch and French. The range of French dubbed versions is approximately as wide as the German range where practically all films and TV-series are dubbed. Sometimes separate versions are recorded in the Netherlands and in Flanders; for instance several Walt Disney films or ''Harry Potter'' films. These dubbed versions only differ from each other in using different voice actors and different pronunciation while the text is almost the same. In general, movies shown by Flemish broadcasters are always shown in original language with subtitles, with the exception of movies for a young audience.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the vast majority of foreign films are subtitled although some, mostly animated films and TV programmes, are dubbed in English. These usually originate from North America as opposed to being dubbed locally, although there have been notable examples of films and TV programmes successfully dubbed in the UK, such as the Japanese ''Monkey'' and French ''Magic Roundabout'' series. When airing films on television, channels in the UK and Ireland will often choose subtitling over dubbing, even if a dubbing in English exists. It is also a fairly common practice for animation aimed at pre-school children to be re-dubbed with British voice actors replacing the original voices, although this is not done with shows aimed at older audiences.

Some animated films and TV programmes are also dubbed into Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. Similarly, in Ireland, animated series shown on TG4 are shown dubbed in Irish.

In Portugal, dubbing was banned under a 1948 law, as a way of protecting the domestic film industry. Till 1994 animated movies as well as other TV series for children in Portugal were dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese due to the lack of interest from Portuguese companies in the dubbing department. This lack of interest was justified since there were already quality dubbed copies of shows and movies in the Portuguese language made by Brazilians (same language, different accent and some dialogue changes). The Lion King was the first feature film to be dubbed in European Portuguese rather than just Brazilian Portuguese alone. Nowadays all movies for children are dubbed in European Portuguese. Subtitles are preferred in Portugal, being used in every foreign-language documentary, TV series and film, the exception being when children are the target public. While on TV children's shows and movies are always dubbed, in cinema theaters films with a clear juvenile target can be found in two versions, one dubbed (identified by the letters V.P., meaning ''Versão Portuguesa'' - Portuguese Version) and other subtitled version (V.O., meaning ''Versão Original'' - Original Version). This duality applies only to juvenile films, others use subtitles only. While the quality of these dubs is recognized (some already got international recognition and prizes), original versions with subtitles are usually preferred by the grown public (''Bee Movie'' as an example). It is not common practice to dub animation for adults (such as ''The Simpsons'' or ''South Park''). When ''The Simpsons Movie'' debuted in Portugal most cinemas showed both versions (V.O. and V.P.), but in some small cities, cinemas decided to offer only the Portuguese Version, decision that lead to the public protest. Nowadays, live action series and movies are ''always'' shown in its original language format with Portuguese subtitles. Television programs for young children for example such as: ''Power Rangers'', ''Goosebumps'', ''Big Bad Beetleborgs'', etc. are dubbed into European Portuguese.

In Romania, virtually all programmes intended for children and young adults are dubbed in Romanian, including cartoons, live-action movies and TV series on Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Minimax, Nickelodeon as well as those shown on generalist television networks, children-focused series like ''Power Rangers'', ''The New Addams Family'', ''The Planet's Funniest Animals'' or movies screened on children television. Animation movies are shown in theaters with Romanian dubbing, but usually those cinemas with more screening rooms also provide the original subtitled version; that was the case for movies like ''Babe'', ''Atlantis: The Lost Empire'', ''Finding Nemo'', ''Cars'', ''Shrek the Third'', ''Ratatouille'', ''Kung Fu Panda'' or ''WALL-E''. Other foreign TV shows and movies are shown in the original language with Romanian subtitles. Usually subtitles are preferred in the Romanian market, except for programme intended for children. According to "Special Eurobarometer 243" of the European Commission (research carried out in November and December 2005), 62% of Romanians prefer to watch foreign films and programmes with subtitles, rather than dubbed; nonetheless 22% have a preference for dubbing, while 16% declined to answer. This is led by the assumption that watching movies in their original versions is very useful for learning foreign languages. However, according to the same Eurobarometer, virtually no Romanian found this method—watching movies in their original version—to be the most efficient way of learning foreign languages, compared to 53 percent who preferred language lessons at school.

In the Nordic countries, dubbing is used only in animated features and other films for young audiences. Some theaters in the major cities may also screen the original version, usually as the last showing of the day, or in a smaller auditorium in a multiplex. According to a survey, almost 95% of the population in these countries prefer the original version. In Finland, for children of the 5% Swedish-speaking minority, the dubbed version from Sweden may also be available at certain cinemas, but only in cities/towns with a significant percentage of Swedish speakers. DVD releases usually only have the original audio, except for children's films which have both Finnish and Swedish language tracks, in addition to the original audio and subtitles in both languages. In movie theaters, films for grown-up audiences have both Finnish and Swedish subtitles, the Finnish printed in basic font and the Swedish printed below the Finnish in a cursive font. In the early ages of television, foreign TV shows and movies were dubbed by one actor in Finland, as in Russian Gavrilov translation. Later, subtitles became a practice on Finnish television. Dubbing of other than children's films is unpopular in Finland, as in many other countries. A good example is ''The Simpsons Movie''. While the original version was well-received, the Finnish dubbed version got poor reviews; some critics even calling it a disaster. On the other hand, many dubs of Disney animated features have been well received, both critically and by the public.

In Greece, all films are released theatrically in their original versions and contain subtitles. Only cartoon films (for example, ''Finding Nemo'', ''The Incredibles'', ''Ratatouille'' and so on) are released in both original and Greek-dubbed versions, for children who cannot yet read quickly or not at all. Foreign TV shows are also shown in their original versions except for most cartoons. For example ''The Flintstones'' and ''The Jetsons'' were always dubbed, while ''Family Guy'' and ''American Dad!'' are always subtitled and contains the original English dialogue, since it is mostly for adults rather than children. Only Mexican TV series like ''Rubí'', ''La usurpadora'', and teen series like ''Hannah Montana'' and ''The Suite Life of Zack & Cody'' are dubbed in Greek. Japanese Anime like ''Dragon Ball'', ''Tokyo Mew Mew'', ''Sonic X'' ''Pokémon and ''Sailor Moon'' are shown dubbed in Greek.

In Israel, only children's movies and TV programming are dubbed in Hebrew. In programs aimed at teenagers and adults, dubbing is rarely considered as a method of translation not only because of its high costs, but also because the audience is mainly multi-lingual. Most viewers in Israel speak at least one European language in addition to Hebrew, and there is also a large audience that speaks Arabic. Therefore, most viewers prefer to hear the original soundtrack, aided by Hebrew subtitles. Another problem is that dubbing does not allow for translation into two different languages simultaneously, as is often the case in Israeli television channels that use subtitles in Hebrew and another language (like Russian) simultaneously.

In Serbia, Croatia, and most other Serbo-Croat-speaking parts of former Yugoslavia, foreign films, TV series and TV news are always subtitled, while children's movies and cartoons are dubbed into Serbo-Croat. The dubbing of cartoon classics during the 1980s had a twist of its own: famous Belgrade actors provided the voices for Disney's, Warner Brothers', MGM's and other companies' characters, frequently using region specific phrases and sentences and thus adding a dose of local humor to the translation of the original lines. These phrases became immensely popular and are still being used for tongue-in-cheek comments in specific situations. Even though these dubbed classics are seldom aired nowadays, younger generations continue to use these phrases without knowing their true origin.

In Croatia foreign films and TV series are always subtitled, while some children programs and cartoons are dubbed into Croatian. Recently, more efforts have been made to introduce dubbing, but public reception was poor. Regardless of language, Croatian audience prefers subtitling to dubbing. Some previously quite popular shows (for example, ''Sailor Moon'') lost their appeal completely after dubbing started and were eventually taken off the program. The situation is similar with theater movies with only those intended for children being dubbed (''Finding Nemo'', ''Shark Tale''), but they are also regularly shown subtitled as well. Recently, there has been effort to impose dubbing by Nova TV with ''La Fea Más Bella'' translated as ''Ružna ljepotica'' (lit. "The Ugly Beauty"), a Mexican telenovela, but it failed poorly. In fact they had only dubbed a quarter of the show, ultimately replacing it with the subtitled version due to lack of interest for the dubbed version.

In Slovenia, all foreign films and television programmes are subtitled without exception. Traditionally, children's movies and animated cartoons used to be dubbed, but subtitling has gradually spread into that genre as well. Nowadays, only movies for pre-school children remain dubbed.

Generally dubbing countries[link]

In France, movies and TV series are always released dubbed in French. Films are usually released theatrically in both dubbed and original versions in large cities' main street theaters, and a theater showing a subtitled movie typically has a sign on the poster advising moviegoers that the film is an original-language version (usually abbreviated VO [''version originale''] or VOST [''version originale sous-titrée''] as opposed to VF [''version française'']). Art house movies are often available in their original version only due to limited distribution. Some voice talents, such as Alexandre Gillet, Roger Carel, Richard Darbois, Edgar Givry, Jacques Frantz, Jacques Balutin Marc Alfos, Serge Faliu or Francis Lax, have achieved significant popularity.

The Germanophone dubbing market is the largest in Europe. Germany has the most foreign movie dubbing studios per capita and per given area in the world. In Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland, practically all films, shows, television series and foreign soap operas are shown in dubbed versions created for the German market. (In Switzerland however in every bigger town (10,000 and more inhabitants), both versions are shown, either in the same theatre at different hours/days or in different cinemas.) Even computer games and video games feature German text menus and are dubbed into the German language if there are any speaking parts in the games. However, in recent years, Swiss-German television, SF1 and SF2 have been showing increasing numbers of movies in "dual sound", which means the viewer can choose between the original language (usually English) or German. In addition, Swiss-French television shows many broadcasts available in either the original language or in French, as does the Swiss-Italian television channel RSI. A common example is the American detective series ''Columbo'' and other popular series-based broadcasts, such as ''Starsky and Hutch''.

Dubbing films has been and is still tradition and common practice in the German-speaking area, since subtitles are not accepted and used as much as in other European countries. According to a European study, Austria is the country with the highest rejection (more than 70 percent) with regard to using subtitles, followed by Italy, Spain and Germany.

Although voice actors play only a secondary role, they are still notable for providing familiar voices to well-known actors. Famous foreign actors are known and recognized for their German voice and the German audience is used to them, so dubbing is also a matter of authenticity. However, in larger cities there are theaters where movies can be seen in their original versions as English has become more popular, especially among younger viewers. On German TV, few movies are subtitled, although pay-per-view programming is often available in its original language.

German dubbed versions sometimes diverge greatly from the original, especially adding humorous elements to the original. In extreme cases, like ''The Persuaders!'', the dubbed version was more successful than the English original. Often it also adds sexually explicit gags the U.S. versions might not be allowed to use, like in ''Bewitched'', translating ''The Do-not-disturb sign will hang on the door tonight'' to ''The only hanging thing tonight will be the Do-not-disturb sign''.

Some movies dubbed before reunification exist in different versions for the east and the west. They use different translations, and often they are different in the style of dubbing.

In Italy the use of dubbing is systematic, with a long tradition going back to the 1930s in Rome, Milan and Turin. In Mussolini's fascist Italy, foreign languages were banned. Rome is the principal base of the dubbing industry, where major productions such as movies, drama, documentaries and some cartoons are dubbed. However, in Milan it is mostly cartoons and some minor productions which are dubbed. Practically every American film, of every genre, whether for kids or adults, as well as TV shows, are dubbed into Italian. In big cities original version movies can also be seen. Subtitles are usually available on late night programmes on mainstream TV channels, and on pay-TV all movies are available in the original language with Italian subtitles, and many shows feature the original soundtrack. But for fans of dubbing, there are some little-known sites on the Internet that offer the free streaming of movies with their Italian soundtrack. Early in his career, Nino Manfredi worked extensively as a dubbing actor. Furthermore, common practice at one point in Italian cinema was to shoot scenes MOS and dub the dialogue in post-production, a notable example being ''The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'', in which even actors speaking English on screen had to dub in their own voices.

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, virtually all foreign films and television programmes shown on television are dubbed, often by very well-known actors. In Slovakia often the Czech dub is shown instead of producing a local one. Some audiences prefer the Czech dubs because they are considered to be of higher quality. In both countries dubbing actors often "overact", causing audiences to express views that American films are of low intellectual quality. In cinemas, films are usually shown subtitled, unless they are intended for children of 12 years of age and younger; Slovak law requires that those films be dubbed or rated as MP-12 (roughly equivalent to PG-13, without a cautionary meaning in this case.). Cinemas sometimes offer both dubbed and subtitled screenings for either very major movie releases (for example, the ''Lord of the Rings'' movie trilogy) that would have otherwise not been dubbed, or conversely for children's films or family films that are expected to also attract mature viewers (for example, ''Shrek'') to maximize the potential audience. In the Czech republic it's also common that some actors are dubbed always by one Czech actor, for instance Louis de Funes was almost always dubbed by František Filipovský. In Slovakia, state-owned public broadcaster Slovenská televízia dubs programs that it acquires from foreign companies for its channels into Slovak. Markiza and TV JOJ also dub. In the Czech Republic, MiniMax, Animax, TV Prima and other Czech-language stations also impose dubbing. For example, Jan Maxián is the official Czech voice dubbing artist for high-profile actor, Elijah Wood. But in the Slovak Dubbing markets, Elijah Wood's Slovak dubbing voice was provided by Michal Hallon.

In Spain, practically all foreign television programmes are shown dubbed in European Spanish, as are most films. Some dubbing actors have achieved popularity for their voices, like Constantino Romero, who dubs Clint Eastwood, Darth Vader and Schwarzenegger's Terminator, among others, and Óscar Muñoz who is the official European Spanish dub-over voice artist for Elijah Wood and Hayden Christensen.

In Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, Galicia and the Basque Country, many or most foreign programmes are also dubbed into their own official languages, different from European Spanish. Currently, with the spread of the Digital terrestrial television most movies and series can be listened to both in the original and in the dubbed version.

Mixed areas[link]

In Hungary, practically all television programmes are dubbed, as are about 50 percent of movies in theaters. In the socialist era, every one of them was dubbed with professional and mostly popular actors. Great care was taken to make sure the same voice actor would lend his voice to the same actor. In the early 1990s, as cinemas tried to keep up with showing newly released films, subtitling became dominant in cinema. This, in turn, forced TV channels to make their own cheap versions of dubbed soundtracks for the movies they presented, resulting in a constant degrading of dubbing quality. Once this became customary, cinema distributors resumed the habit of dubbing for popular productions, presenting them in a quality varying from very poor to average. However, every single feature is presented with the original soundtrack in at least one cinema in large towns and cities.

However, in Hungary most of documentary films and series (for example, on Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel) are made with voice-over. Also some old movies and series, or ones that provide non-translatable jokes and conversations (for example, Mr. Bean television series), are shown only with subtitles.

There is a more recent problem arising from dubbing included on DVD releases. Many generations have grown up with an original, and by current technological standards outdated soundtrack, which is either technologically (mono or bad quality stereo sound) or legally (expired soundtrack licence) unsuitable for a DVD release. Many original features are released on DVD with a new soundtrack, which in some cases proves to be extremely unpopular, thus forcing DVD producers to include the original soundtrack. In some rare cases the Hungarian soundtrack is left out altogether. This happens notably with Warner Home Video Hungary, who ignored the existence of Hungarian soundtracks completely. This was because they did not want to pay the licensees for the soundtracks to be included on their new DVD releases, which appear with improved picture quality, but very poor subtitling.

Voice-over[link]

In Poland cinema releases for general audiences are almost exclusively subtitled, with the exception of children's movies, and television screenings of movies, as well as made-for-TV shows, are usually shown with voice-over, where the original soundtrack is kept, and translation is read by a voice talent. This method, called juxtareading, is similar to the so-called Gavrilov translation in Russia, with one difference - all the dialogues are translated with only one acute, and usually male voice, preferably deep and neutral which does not interfere with the pitch of voice of the original speakers in the background. To some extent it resembles live translation. Certain highly qualified lectors are traditionally assigned to a particular kind of production such as action or drama. Standard dubbing is not widely popular with most audiences, with the exception of cartoons and children's shows, which are dubbed also for TV releases.

Poland has long lasting dubbing traditions which reaches inter-war years. One of the first movies dubbed into Polish in 1931 were ''Dangerous Curves'' (1929), ''The Dance of Life'' (1929), ''Paramount on Parade'' (1930) and ''Darling of the Gods'' (1930). 1949 saw the opening of the first dubbing studio, located in Łódź. The first film dubbed the same year was ''Russkiy vopros'' (filmed 1948).

The Polish dubbing in the first post-war years did not have good opinion because of bad synchronization. The Polish dialogues were unclear, so people could not understand them. Cinemas had an old aperture which sometimes made a film more unclear than it was. In the 1950s the Polish publicist discussed about the quality of Polish versions to foreign movies.

Both the number of dubbed movies and its quality had improved. In the 1960s-80's the Polish dubbing had a golden age. In the cinemas were dubbed 1/3 of foreign movies. It was said about "Polish dubbing school" because of its high quality. In that time Poland had some of the best dubbing in the world. The most important person who initiated high quality dubbing versions was director Zofia Dybowska-Aleksandrowicz. Her works were as good as original and sometimes even better who admitted people connected with the original version (actors and directors). In that time dubbing in Poland was very popular. Polish television dubbed very popular films and TV series such as ''Rich Man, Poor Man'', ''Fawlty Towers'', ''Forsyte Saga'', ''Elizabeth R'', ''I, Claudius'', ''I'll Take Manhattan'', ''Peter the Great''.

In the 1980s due to low budget, the television did not have money for tapes so they used the actual recordings. After first emission dubbing was cancelled (they recorded on that tape something else). In the whole period of communism were dubbed almost 1000 films. In the 1990s after democratic transformation Polish television (TVP) was still dubbing films and TV series. Unfortunately like in the 1980s it was a dubbing only for one emission.

In the year 1995 to Poland entranced Canal+ who at the first years dubbed 30% of schedule. They dubbed very ambitious films and popular TV series. One of the well known and popular dubbing were ''Friends''. Unfortunately they stopped dubbing ''Friends'' in 2001 and films in 1999 although many people supported the idea of dubbing and bought the access only for dubbing versions of foreign productions. According to survey of public opinion dubbing in Canal+ supported 43,4% subscribers (almost 500,000 people). The other 50,2% preferred lectors and 8,1% with subtitles. In the 1990s dubbing was made also by television Wizja Jeden. They dubbed mainly production of BBC such as very popular ''The League of Gentlemen'', ''Absolutely Fabulous'' or ''Men Behaving Badly''. Wizja Jeden was closed in 2001. In the same year TVP stopped dubbing TV series ''Frasier'' although that dubbing was very popular.

Nowadays according to the recent survey of public opinion made by TVP, dubbing and voice-over is equally supported by 45% of society each. At present dubbing to films and TV series for teenagers is made by Nickelodeon and Disney's Channels. One of the major breakthroughs in dubbing was the Polish release of ''Shrek'', which contained many references to local culture and Polish humor. Since then, people seem to have grown to like dubbed versions more, and pay more attention to the dubbing actors. However, this seems to be the case only with animated films, as live-action dubbing is still considered a bad practice. In the case of DVD releases, most discs contain both the original soundtrack and subtitles, and either lector or dubbed Polish track. The dubbed version is in most cases the one from the theater release, while voice-over is provided for movies which were only subtitled in theaters.

Russian television is generally dubbed with only a couple of voice actors, with the original speech still audible underneath. In the Soviet Union most foreign movies to be officially released were dubbed. However, with the fall of the regime many popular foreign movies, previously forbidden or at least questionable under communist rule, started to flood in, in the form of low-quality home-copied videos. Being unofficial releases, they were dubbed in a very primitive way, for example, the translator spoke the text directly over the audio of a video being copied, using primitive equipment. The quality of the resulting dub was very low, the translated phrases were off-sync, interfered with the original voices, background sounds leaked into the track, translation was inaccurate and most importantly, all dub voices were made by a single person and usually lacked the intonation of the original, making comprehension of some scenes quite difficult. In modern Russia, the overdubbing technique is still used in many cases, although with vastly improved quality and now with multiple voice actors dubbing different original voices.

In Ukraine television and cinema is generally dubbed with the overdubbing technique, with multiple voice actors dubbing different original voices. But for Russian films are possible subtitles. Russian-language TV programs are usually not dubbed.

In Latvia and Lithuania, voice-over dubbing is hugely popular on Television; almost all shows are voice-over dubbed. This dubbing method is similar to the Polish method which means that only one person reads the whole translated text while the original sound can be heard in the background in a lowered loudness, throughout the entire program. In cinemas, only children's animated (such as The Tale of Despereaux) and live action films (such as Charlotte's Web) is dubbed in Latvian and Lithuanian languages.

Americas[link]

For Spanish-speaking countries, all foreign-language programs, films, cartoons and documentaries shown in free aired TV channels are dubbed into Neutral Spanish, while in cable and satellite pan-regional channels, films are either dubbed or subtitled. In theaters, only films made for children are dubbed into Neutral Spanish (sometimes with Mexican pronunciation) and sometimes dubbed into local Spanish. In Argentina, all movies are shown in their original language, in addition to Spanish-dubbed versions of films for children.

In Mexico, by law, films shown in theaters must be shown in their original version; films in languages other than Spanish are usually subtitled. Only educational documentaries and movies classified for a children's audience may be dubbed, but this is not compulsory and some animated films are shown in theaters in both dubbed and subtitled versions. Dubbing must be made in Mexico by Mexican nationals or foreigners residing in Mexico. Most of the movies released as DVD have the feature of Neutral Spanish. On broadcast TV foreign programs are dubbed. In pay TV most shows and movies are subtitled.

In Brazil, foreign programs are invariably dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese on broadcast TV, with only a few exceptions. Films shown at cinemas are generally offered with both subtitled and dubbed versions, although subtitling is preferential for adult movies and dubbing is preferential for children movies. Pay TV commonly offers both dubbed and subtitled movies, but subtitling is predominant. When released on DVD, all movies usually feature both dubbing and subtitling.

In Quebec, Canada, most films and TV programs in English are dubbed into Quebec French (with an International French accent for ease of comprehension and regional neutrality). Occasionally, the dubbing of a series or a movie, such as ''The Simpsons'', is made using the more widely-spoken ''joual'' variety of Quebec French. This has the advantage of making children's films and TV series comprehensible to younger audiences, but many bilingual Québécois prefer subtitling since they would understand some or all of the original audio. In addition, all films are shown in English as well in certain theaters (especially in major cities and English-speaking areas such as the West Island), and in fact, some theatres, such as the Scotiabank Cinema Montreal, show only movies in English. Most American television series are only available in English on DVD, or on English-language channels, but some of the more popular ones have French dubs shown on mainstream networks, and are released in French on DVD as well, sometimes separately from an English-only version.

Formerly, all French-language dubbed films in Quebec were imported from France, and to this day some still are. Such a practice was criticized by former politician Mario Dumont after he took his children to see the Parisian French dub of ''Shrek the Third'', which Dumont found incomprehensible. After Dumont's complaints and a proposed bill, ''Bee Movie'', the following film from DreamWorks Animation, was dubbed in Quebec, making it the studio's first animated film to have a Quebec French dub, as all DreamWorks Animation films had previously been dubbed in France. In addition, because Canadian viewers usually find Quebec French more comprehensible than other dialects of the language, some older film series that had the French-language versions of previous installments dubbed in France have later ones dubbed in Quebec, often creating inconsistencies within the French version of the series' canon. Lucasfilm's ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' series are examples. Both series had films released in the 1970s and 1980s with no Québécois French dubbed versions; instead, the Parisian French versions with altered character and object names, terms, and so on, were distributed in the province. However, later films in both series released 1999 and later were dubbed in Quebec, using different voice actors and "reversing" name changes made in France's dubbings due to the change in studio. The French dub of Naruto that airs in Quebec is from France but uses a local opening.

Asia[link]

In Hong Kong, foreign television programmes, except for English and Mandarin television programmes, are dubbed in Cantonese Chinese, and Japanese programmes, including anime, are also dubbed in Cantonese Chinese. English and Mandarin programmes are generally shown in their original language with subtitles. Foreign films such as most live action films and animated films are also generally dubbed in Cantonese Chinese such as anime films and Disney animated films.

Almost all the time, foreign films and TV programmes, both live-action and animated, are generally dubbed in both Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese languages.

For example in The Lord of the Rings film series, Elijah Wood's character Frodo Baggins was given a Mandarin Chinese voice-over dubbed by Jiang Guangtao for China and Taiwan. But for the Cantonese Chinese voice-over localization, his voice was given by Bosco Tang for the Hong Kong market.

In Japan, many television programs go on Japanese television subtitled or when a Japanese-voice dubbed version for the work that will be produced for children. Since the American film Morocco was released in Japan in 1931, subtitles became the mainstream method of translating TV programs and films in Japan. Later around the 1950s, foreign television programs and films began to be shown dubbed in Japanese on TV. In the first stage, the lack of video software for domestic television, video software is imported from abroad, when it is televised, broadcast on commercial TV was mostly dubbed. This is the character limit for a small TV screen at a lower resolution and the initial response to their poor elderly and illiterate eye, as far as television was to be used for audio dubbing. Nowadays, TV shows and movies that are aimed either at all ages, or for adults-only are both shown generally dubbed and shown with its original language with Japanese subtitles and contains the original language option when that film gets released on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. Adult cartoons such as ''Family Guy'' and ''South Park'' are shown dubbed in Japanese on the WOWOW TV channel. But for ''South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut'', it was dubbed in Japanese by different actors instead of the same Japanese dubbing-actors from the cartoon, due to the fact that it was handled by a different Japanese dubbing studio, and also marketed for the Kansai market. Foreign films usually contains multiple different Japanese-dubbing versions, but with a bunch of different original Japanese-dubbing voice actors depending whenever on which TV station it airs on. NHK, Nippon TV, Fuji TV, TV Asahi and also TBS usually do this, and same for even on software releases such as being released on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray. There also exists ''"Japanese Dub-over artists"'' for famous celebrities, for example:

In Thailand, foreign television programs are dubbed in Thai, but the original soundtrack is often simultaneously carried on a NICAM audio track on terrestrial broadcast, and alternate audio tracks on satellite broadcast; previously, terrestrial stations simulcasted the original soundtrack on the radio. On Pay-TV, many channels carry foreign-language movies and television programs with subtitles. Nearly all movie theaters throughout the country show both the subtitled version and the dubbed version of English-language movies. In Bangkok, the majority of theaters showing English-language movies are subtitled only. In big cities like Bangkok Thai-language movies have English subtitles. For English-language animated movies, Disney films like The Lion King, Mulan and Tangled are dubbed entirely in Thai. Chonnai Sukawat has provided the Thai-dubbing voice for the heroine Rapunzel in the film Tangled. In Harry Potter, Hermione Granger was dubbed in Thai by Thai singer and actress known as: Bismillah Nana. Many English-language movies are sold on VCDs in Thailand, with the original English language with Thai subtitles as well as also being available with the Thai-language-dubbed version, such as Eragon, Avatar, the Harry Potter film series and The Lord of the Rings film series. Thai lakorns are with English subtitles if broadcast on international television channels, or sold as DVD abroad.

In South Korea, anime that are imported from Japan are shown dubbed in Korean generally, on television. But with some anime being censored such as editing Japanese letters or content for a suitable Korean audience. Western cartoons are also dubbed in Korean as well, such as Nickelodeon cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants and Danny Phantom. Several English-speaking (mostly American) live-action films were generally dubbed in Korean, but they were not shown in theaters. Instead they were only broadcast on South Korean television networks (KBS, MBC, SBS), while DVD import releases of these films were shown with Korean subtitles. This may be due to the fact that the six American major film studios may not own any rights to the Korean dubs of their live-action films, currently to this point, that the Korean television networks have dubbed and aired. Even if they don't own the rights, Korean or Non-Korean viewers can record off Korean dubbed live action films from Television broadcasting onto DVDs with DVRs. Sometimes video games are also dubbed in Korean. A good example would be the Halo video games. Lee Jeong Gu lends his Korean voice to the main protagonist Master Chief (replacing Steve Downes's voice), while Kim So Hyeong voices Chieftain Tartarus (replacing Kevin Michael Richardson's voice), one of the main antagonists.

In Indonesia and Malaysia, South American telenovelas are dubbed in Indonesian and Malay, while English-language programs are usually shown in the original language with Indonesian and Malay subtitles, respectively. However, this has recently changed in Malaysia, and South American telenovelas now retain their original language, with Malay subtitles. Most but not all Korean and Japanese dramas are still dubbed in Mandarin with Malay subtitles on terrestrial television channels. Cantonese, Mandarin, Tamil and Hindi programmes are shown in original language all this while, usually with Malay subtitling (and in some cases, multilingual subtitling). Cartoons and anime are also dubbed as well, such as Kekkaishi, Megas XLR, Spheres (Korea), dubbed by young soundman Mohamad Nor Aliff Abd Majid a.k.a. Aliff JJ, and others like Crayon Shin Chan, Doraemon, Bleach, and Naruto. Although English-language cartoons are normally not dubbed, and some anime do retain their original Japanese language. In Indonesia, English-language daytime cartoons are mostly dubbed, however on some pay-tv channels like Nickelodeon, cartoons are not dubbed and do not have subtitles. Feature animations are either dubbed or subtitled depending on which television-channel it is shown on.

Malaysian news programs are broadcast in several languages for twenty minutes each language for minor languages and international languages, including dialects of Chinese, the languages of news to broadcast by law is Malay, English, Mandarin Chinese, Min Nan and Thai.

In the Philippines, Japanese anime are more often than not dubbed in Tagalog or another Philippine regional language. The channel HERO TV, which focuses on anime and Tokusatsu shows, has all its foreign programs dubbed in Tagalog. Animax, meanwhile, have their anime programs dubbed in English. Also popular in the Philippines are the Chinese, Korean, and Mexican dramas which are termed Chinovelas, Koreanovelas, and Mexicanovelas, respectively, and all these are also dubbed in Tagalog or another Philippine regional language, with its unique set of Filipino-speaking voice actors. The prevalence of media needing to be dubbed has resulted in a talent pool that is very capable of syncing voice to lip, especially for shows broadcast by the country's three largest networks. It's not uncommon in the Filipino dub industry to have most of the voices in a series dubbed by only a handful of voice talents. Normally, English-language programs are usually not dubbed, because most Filipinos can understand English. Notable exceptions are a number of Nickelodeon cartoons shown on TV5 which are dubbed in Tagalog or another Philippine regional language. TV5 is also the only television channel in the country that airs English-language movies dubbed in Tagalog.

In Mongolia, most television dubbing uses the Russian method, with only a few voice actors, and the original language audible underneath. In movie theaters, foreign films are shown in their original language with Mongolian subtitles underneath.

In India, where "foreign films" are synonymous with Hollywood films, dubbing is done mostly in Hindi, and languages like Tamil and Telugu. The finished works are released into the towns and lower tier settlements of the respective states (where English penetration is low), often with the English-language originals being released in the metropolitan areas. In all other states, the English originals are released along with the dubbed versions where often the dubbed version collections are outstanding than original. The most recent dubbing of ''Spider-Man 3'' was also done in the Bhojpuri language, a language popular in northern India. Information for the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu voice actors who have done the voices for specific actors and for their roles on foreign films and television programs are published in local Indian data magazines, for those that are involved in the dubbing industry in India.

In Pakistan, almost 60% of the population speaks Punjabi as their mother tongue. Therefore, Punjabi films have more business than Urdu films. The film companies produced Punjabi films and re-record all films in Urdu and released the result as a "double version" film.

Also in Pakistan, where "foreign films" are synonymous with Hollywood films, dubbing is done mostly in Urdu , which is the national language, and the finished works are released in the major cities throughout country.

In Vietnam, foreign-language films and programs are subtitled on television in Vietnamese, and previously (until 1985) are not dubbed, but are brief translated with a speaker before commercial breaks. ''Rio'' was considered to be the very first American Hollywood film to be entirely dubbed in Vietnamese.

In multilingual Singapore, English-language programs on the free-to-air terrestrial channels are usually subtitled in Chinese or Malay, while Chinese, Malay and Tamil programs are almost always subtitled in English. Dual sound programs like Korean and Japanese dramas offer sound in the original languages with subtitles, Mandarin dubbed and subtitled, or English dubbed. The deliberate policy to encourage Mandarin among citizens made it required by law for programs in other Chinese dialects (Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew) to be dubbed into Mandarin, exceptions being traditional operas. Cantonese and Hokkien shows from Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively are nevertheless available on VCD and DVD. In a recent development, news bulletins are subtitled.

Middle East[link]

Africa[link]

The Maghreb[link]

In Tunisia, theaters usually show French dubbed movies, but cinema attendance in the country for such movies is in continuous decline compared to Tunisian and Arab movies. This decline can be traced to the huge popularity of free-to-air Pan-Arab movie channels offering mainly subtitled content and the government's reduced efforts to limit piracy. Tunisia National Television (TNT), the public broadcaster of Tunisia, is not allowed to show any content in any language other than Arabic, which forced it to broadcast only dubbed content (this restriction was lately removed for commercials). During the 1970s and 1980s, TNT (known as ERTT at the time) started dubbing famous cartoons in Tunisian and Standard Arabic. This move was highly successful locally, but was not able to compete with mainstream dubbing companies (especially in the Middle East). In the private sector, television channels are not subject to the language rule and sometimes broadcast foreign content dubbed into French (excluding children content), although some of them, such as Hannibal TV started adopting subtitling in Arabic instead, which proved to be more popular than simply importing French dubbed content.

South Africa[link]

However, this practice has declined as a result of the reduction of airtime for the language on SABC TV, and the increase of locally produced material in Afrikaans on other channels like KykNet and MK.

Similarly, many programmes, such as ''The Jeffersons'', were dubbed into Zulu, but this has also declined as local drama production has increased.

Oceania[link]

Insistence on subtitling[link]

In the Netherlands, Flanders, Nordic countries and Estonia, films and television programmes are shown in the original language (usually English) with subtitles, and only cartoons and children movies and programs are dubbed, such as the ''Harry Potter'' series, ''Finding Nemo'', ''Shrek'', ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'', and so on. Cinemas usually show both a dubbed version and one with subtitles for this kind of movie, with the subtitled version shown later in the evening.

In Portugal this has traditionally also been the case (at least for live-action material), but one terrestrial channel, TVI, dubs U.S. series like ''Dawson's Creek'' into Portuguese. RTP also transmitted ''Friends'' in a dubbed version, but it was poorly received and later re-aired in a subtitled version. Cartoons, on the other hand, are usually dubbed, sometimes by well-known actors, even on TV. Animated movies are usually released to the cinemas in both subtitled and dubbed versions.

On DVDs with higher translation budgets, the option for both types will often be provided to account for individual preferences; purists often demand subtitles. For small markets (small language area or films for a select audience) subtitling is more suitable because it is cheaper. For films for small children who cannot yet read, or do not read fast enough, dubbing is necessary.

In Argentina and Venezuela, terrestrial channels air films and TV series in a dubbed version, as demanded by law. However, those same series can be seen on cable channels at more accessible timeslots in their subtitled version, and usually before they are shown on open TV. In contrast, the series ''The Simpsons'' is aired in its Mexican dubbed version both on terrestrial television and on the cable station Fox, which broadcasts the series for the area. Although the first season of the series appeared with subtitles, this was not continued for the following seasons.

Apart from airing dubbed TV series (for example, ''Lost'', ''ER'' and ''House'') the Argentinian open TV station Canal 13 (Argentina) has bought the rights to produce and air a "ported version" of ''Desperate Housewives'' in Argentina, with local actors and actresses.

Use in video games[link]

For the European version of a video game, the text of the game is available in various languages, and in many cases, the dialogue is dubbed into the respective languages as well.

The North American version of any game is always available in English with translated text and dubbed dialogue if necessary, as well as in other languages in some cases, especially if the North American version of the game contains the same data as the European version. Because the English dubbing voice casts of many Japanese games are perceived negatively, some Japanese games, such as those in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'', ''Dynasty Warriors'' and ''Soulcalibur'' series, include the original Japanese audio as well as an English translated dubbing version.

Other uses[link]

Dubbing is commonly used in science fiction television as well. Sound generated by effects equipment such as animatronic puppets or by actors' movements on elaborate multi-level plywood sets (for example, starship bridges or other command centers) will quite often make the original character dialogue unusable. ''Stargate'' and ''Farscape'' are two prime examples where ADR is used heavily to produce usable audio.

Since some anime series contain some amount of profanity, the studios recording the English dubs often re-record certain lines if a series or movie is going to be broadcast on Cartoon Network, removing references to death and hell as well. Some companies will offer both an edited and an uncut version of the series on DVD, so that there is an edited script available in case the series is broadcast. Other companies also edit the full-length version of a series, meaning that even on the uncut DVD characters say things like "Blast!" and "Darn!" in place of the original dialogue's profanity. Bandai Entertainment's English dub of ''G Gundam'' is infamous for this, among many other things, with such lines as "Bartender, more milk".

Dubbing has also been used for comedic purposes, replacing lines of dialogue to create comedies from footage that was originally another genre. Examples include the Australian shows The Olden Days and Bargearse, redubbed from 1970s Australian drama and action series, respectively, and the Irish show Soupy Norman, redubbed from Pierwsza miłość, a Polish soap opera.

Dubbing into a foreign language does not always entail the deletion of the original language; in some countries, a performer may read the translated dialogue as a voiceover. This often occurs in Russia and Poland, where "lektories" or "lektors" read the translated dialogue into Russian and Polish. In Poland, a single person reads all parts of the performance, both male and female. However, this is done almost exclusively for the television and home video markets, while theatrical releases are usually subtitled. Recently, however, the number of high-quality, fully dubbed films has increased, especially for children's movies. If a quality dubbed version exists for some film, it is shown in theaters (however, some films, such as ''Harry Potter'' or ''Star Wars'', are shown in both dubbed and subtitled versions varying with the time of the show) as well as on TV (although some channels drop it and do standard one narrator translation) and VHS/DVD. In other countries, like Vietnam, the voiceover technique is also used for theatrical releases.

In Russia, the reading of all lines by a single person is referred to as a Gavrilov translation, and is generally found only in illegal copies of films and on cable television. Professional copies always include at least two actors of opposite gender translating the dialogue. Some titles in Poland have been dubbed this way, too, but this method lacks public appeal so it is very rare now.

On special occasions, such as film festivals, live interpreting is often done by professionals. See also ''dubtitle''.

Dubbing the same language several times[link]

Portugal and Brazil also use different versions of dubbed films and series. Because dubbing has never been very popular in Portugal, for decades children films and television series were distributed using the good-quality Brazilian dub. Only in the 1990s dubbing began to gain importance in Portugal, thanks to the popularity of dubbed series like ''Dragon Ball''. ''The Lion King'' became the first Disney feature film to be completely dubbed into European Portuguese, and subsequently all major animation films and series gained European Portuguese versions. In recent DVD releases, most of these Brazilian-dubbed classics were released with new Portuguese dubs, eliminating the predominance of Brazilian Portuguese dubs in Portugal.

The German-speaking area which includes Germany, Austria, the German-speaking part of Switzerland and Liechtenstein share together one common German dubbing version. Although there are sometimes some differences concerning some local words or the pronunciation of some words, there's no need to dub into their own versions because all films, shows and series are still dubbed into one single German version made for the German-speaking audience irrespective of any geographical borders. Most voice actors are primarily Germans and Austrians, since here there has been a long tradition of dubbing films. Switzerland which has four official languages (German, French, Italian, Romansh) generally use the dubbed versions made in its respective countries (except for Romansh). Liechtenstein uses German-dubbed versions only.

Sometimes films are also dubbed into several German dialects for example, (Berlinerisch, Kölsch, Saxonian, Austro-Bavarian or Swiss German) which concerns especially animated films or Disney films. It's rather made for ''amusement'' and as an additional "special feature" for making the audience buying it. Popular animated films which were dubbed into German dialects were ''Asterix'' films (in addition to its standard German version, every film has a particular dialect version), ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Shrek 2'', ''Cars'' (+ Austrian German) or ''Up'' (+ Austrian German). But there are also live-action films or TV-series which have an additional German dubbing: ''Babe'' and its sequel ''Babe: Pig in the City'' (Germany German, Austrian German, Swiss German); ''Rehearsal for Murder'', ''Framed'' (+ Austrian German). TV-series: ''The Munsters'', ''Serpico'', ''Rumpole'' (+ Austrian German); ''The Thorn Birds'' (only Austrian German dubbing).

Before the German reunification, East Germany also made its own particular German version. For example: ''Olsen Gang'' or the Hungarian animated series ''The Mézga Family'' were dubbed twice. So you got the opportunity to see a quality comparison.

The many martial arts movies from Hong Kong that were imported under the unofficial banner Kung Fu Theater were notorious for their seemingly careless dubbing which included poor lip sync and awkward dialogue. Since the results were frequently unintentionally hilarious, this has become one of the hallmarks that endear these films to part of the 1980s culture.

While the voice actors involved usually bear the brunt of criticisms towards poor dubbing, other factors may include script translation and audio mixing. A literal translation of dialogue typically contains speech patterns and sentence structure that are native to the foreign language but would appear awkward if translated literally. English dubs of Japanese animation, for example, must rewrite the dialogue so that it flows smoothly and follows the natural pattern of English speech. Voice actors in a dubbing capacity typically do not have the luxury of viewing the original film with the original voice actor and thus have little idea on how to perform the role. Also, on some occasions, voice actors record their dialogue separately, which lacks the dynamics gained from performing as a group.

New technology[link]

Media Movers, Inc., a dubbing company, has developed a piece of proprietary software which can automatically sync ADR/dubbed tracks with pre-defined algorithms.

TM Systems received Emmy awards in 2002 and 2007 for their dubbing and subtitling software.

References[link]

Further reading[link]