Script problems make every voice over session harder before anyone opens a microphone. I've seen sessions that should take thirty minutes stretch to three hours because the script arrived broken. And the frustrating part is that most of these problems are completely preventable — they just require someone to think about the recording before writing the words.
After two decades of recording for brands like Ford, Nike, and Netflix, I can tell you the script is where most sessions succeed or fail. The voice over artist can be brilliant, the studio can be perfect, the client can know exactly what they want. But if the script has structural problems, everyone suffers.
The 30% Length Problem Nobody Plans For
Spanish scripts translated from English are almost always too long. This is physics, not opinion. According to the Globalization and Localization Association, Spanish text runs 25-30% longer than equivalent English content. That means your 30-second English spot becomes a 39-second Spanish disaster if nobody edits it.
What happens in the booth is predictable. The voice over artist rushes. The delivery sounds unnatural. The pacing feels off. The client asks for another take with "more energy" when the real problem is that there are too many words for the available time.
The fix is simple but requires planning: edit the Spanish script before the session, not during it. Cut phrases, simplify constructions, eliminate redundancies. A professional translator who understands advertising knows how to do this. A translation agency that charges by the word does not.
Scripts That Sound Great on Paper
I receive scripts weekly that read beautifully and record terribly. The copywriter wrote something clever and literary. Maybe it won internal approval because it looked impressive in a presentation. But spoken aloud, it's a mouth full of marbles.
Have you ever tried to say "la extraordinaria experiencia exclusiva de excelencia" quickly and cleanly? Nobody can. Alliteration that looks elegant in print becomes a tongue twister in audio. Multiple subordinate clauses that track perfectly when reading become impossible to follow when listening.
The solution is embarrassingly low-tech: read your script out loud before sending it to the voice over artist. Time it. If you stumble, the talent will stumble. If you run out of breath, so will they. (I've suggested this to hundreds of clients over the years, and maybe three have actually done it.)
Timing Notes That Don't Match Reality
A script that says "15 seconds" when the content requires 22 seconds creates immediate conflict. The client expects delivery in the specified time. The voice over artist knows it's impossible without sounding like an auctioneer. Nobody wins.
According to the American Time Use Survey, the average conversational English speech rate is about 150 words per minute. Spanish runs slightly slower — around 140 words per minute for natural delivery. When clients ignore these numbers, they're asking for compressed, unnatural recordings that nobody wants to hear.
The math should happen before the session. Count your words, divide by the target time, check if the result is physically possible. If your 15-second spot has 50 Spanish words, you need 200 words per minute — which sounds like a legal disclaimer, not an ad.
Pronunciation Guides That Don't Exist
Spanish voice session script problems multiply when the script contains proper nouns, technical terms, or brand names without pronunciation guidance. The voice over artist has to guess. They guess wrong. Everyone records three versions while someone tracks down the marketing manager who knows how the product name is actually pronounced.
I recorded a campaign last year with six proprietary product names. No pronunciation guide. The client wasn't on the session. We spent forty minutes on what should have been a five-minute segment because every name required a phone call, a wait, and a re-record.
The fix costs nothing: include a simple phonetic guide for anything unusual. "StellarTech" — does the first syllable rhyme with "tell" or "teal"? Write it down. Your session will be faster and your invoice will be smaller.
Scripts Without Context
A script that says "warm and conversational" means nothing without context. Warm like a financial advisor explaining retirement options? Warm like a grandmother offering cookies? Warm like a car salesman at month-end?
Script issues slow voice over session Spanish recordings because the voice over artist can't interpret what they don't understand. Is this script for a website video or a television commercial? Is the audience millennials or executives? Is the brand playful or authoritative?
But providing context doesn't mean writing a novel. A single sentence helps enormously: "This is a 30-second pre-roll ad for a fintech app targeting bilingual millennials in Texas." Now the voice over artist knows the register, the energy, the cultural reference points. The first take might actually be usable.
Unfinished Approvals
The worst script problem is structural. The script arrives, the session starts, and midway through someone with authority decides they don't like the copy. New lines get written on the fly. The voice over artist re-records. More changes come. The session becomes a writers' room.
A 2023 study by the Association of National Advertisers found that 60% of brand marketers cite unclear internal approval processes as a major cause of production delays. Voice over sessions are no exception. When scripts haven't passed through all stakeholders before recording, the booth becomes an expensive editing suite.
Lock your script before the session. If legal needs to approve it, get legal approval first. If the CMO has strong opinions, run it by them beforehand. The voice over artist is there to interpret copy, not to watch you rewrite it in real time.
The Translation Problem Behind the Translation
Even when Spanish scripts are the correct length and properly formatted, they often contain translation artifacts that make recording difficult. Phrases that work in English become awkward in Spanish. Sentence structures that feel natural to the translator feel wrong to the listener.
This happens because many translations are technically correct but culturally hollow. "Unlock your potential" might translate literally to "Desbloquea tu potencial" — but no Spanish speaker talks like that. The voice over artist can deliver the words, but they'll sound like a translation, which defeats the purpose.
The solution is native Spanish copywriting or localization, where someone rewrites the concept for Spanish speakers rather than translating word-for-word. This costs more upfront and saves everything downstream — session time, re-records, and the embarrassment of ads that sound foreign to your target audience.
What Actually Helps
A clean script has five elements: correct length for the time slot, natural spoken language, pronunciation guides for unusual terms, context for interpretation, and final approval before the session starts. That's it.
And the irony is that most clients already have the information needed to provide all five. They just don't think to include it because they assume the voice over artist will figure it out. Sometimes we do. Often we spend your money on a process that could have been avoided with ten minutes of preparation on your end.
Need a Spanish voice over for your next project? Get in touch and I'll get back to you within the hour.
