Swiss French voice over

No, and numbers are the quickest way to see why: France says soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix where Belgium and Switzerland say septante and nonante. Any script with prices, dates or phone numbers gives the market away on the first figure. Canada is further still and carries a legal dimension in Quebec. Tell us the markets and we will tell you how many recordings you genuinely need — sometimes fewer than you expect.

Different enough that a France recording is heard as foreign in Quebec, and Quebec audiences are notably sensitive about it. The vocabulary diverges in everyday words, the delivery differs, and Quebec actively avoids anglicisms that France uses without thinking — courriel rather than email, fin de semaine rather than week-end. There is also language legislation governing commercial communication in Quebec. It is its own recording and its own adaptation.

Vous unless there is a clear reason not to. French is more conservative about this than neighbouring languages: consumer brands aimed at younger audiences use tu, but financial, institutional, medical and B2B content expects vous, and tu there reads as presumptuous. It appears in every verb, so it is decided in the writing rather than adjusted in the read.

Yes, and it is a distinct brief rather than a variation on a Paris read. West and Central African audiences hear a French accent as content made elsewhere for someone else, which matters most in exactly the development, public-health and telecoms work that dominates those markets. Tell us the countries and we will cast for them.

Yes, and end to end: casting, translation or adaptation, direction, recording, editing and delivery all sit with us. The part clients most often want help with is the decision before any of that — whether one French read covers the markets they are buying, or whether Québec needs its own. We will give you a straight answer on that first, then an itemised quote with the Price Match Promise attached.

It depends on your audience. European French suits France, Belgium and Switzerland, Canadian French is for Québec, and African French covers much of West and Central Africa. The gap between European and Québécois French is roughly comparable to British versus American English, with real differences in accent, vocabulary and idiom, so we advise on the right variety for your target market before recording.

Québec's Charter of the French Language sets strict requirements for French in commercial and public-facing content, and audiences there expect a genuine Québécois voice rather than a European one. We record with native French-Canadian talent so your content meets local expectations and sounds native to the market. This is general information rather than legal advice, so we would always recommend confirming the specifics with your legal team.

In most cases, yes. Standard European French is well understood across France, Belgium and Switzerland, and a neutral Parisian read travels comfortably between them. If a project is aimed specifically at a Belgian or Swiss audience and you want it to feel local, we can cast talent from that market instead.

French is priced per variety, which surprises people. A script recorded once in Parisian French and once in Québécois is two sessions and two licences, not one job with a small surcharge — and if you only need one of them, saying so early is the cheapest decision on the project. Beyond that the quote is a studio fee covering the session, the engineer and the direction, plus a usage licence sized to where the audio runs and for how long. Send the script and the territory list for an exact figure, itemised, with our Price Match Promise behind it.

Tell us which French you need before anything else — France, Québec, Belgium, Switzerland or West Africa — and roughly who is listening. We come back with a shortlist drawn from that variety rather than from French in general, record it in our Central London studios or through our network, and hand the whole thing to one project manager.

Luxury and beauty brands are a constant, as is corporate and compliance content for companies with French operations. Add to that broadcast and radio advertising, museum and heritage narration, eLearning for francophone Africa, IVR systems, game and animation dubbing, and audiobooks.

Yes, and doing it together matters more in French than in most languages, because the same translation choices have to hold across the recording and the on-screen text. One team means the terminology in your subtitles is the terminology the actor said.

We have been recording French in London since 2008, which is long enough to have made every mistake worth avoiding — including sending a Parisian read to a Montréal client. Native-speaking directors sit in on French sessions, so the register, the liaison and the choice between tu and vous get decided in the room rather than discovered in review.

Yes — the demos below are a starting point, but they are cut from other people's projects. Send us your script and shortlisted French actors will read it free of charge, in the variety you need, so the comparison is fair.

WAV, MP3 or AIFF, split by take or mixed, mastered to the target your platform expects. One practical warning: French runs roughly fifteen to twenty per cent longer than English, so if the audio has to fit picture, tell us at script stage rather than at the mix.

French carries strong associations with elegance and craft, so it is especially popular for luxury, beauty, fragrance, fashion and fine-food brands. It is also in constant demand for tourism and hospitality, automotive, and the corporate and institutional content produced across France, Belgium, Switzerland and the EU institutions. We cast the tone to the sector — refined and understated for luxury, warm and clear for corporate.

Yes. For international brands that want French sophistication without a heavy regional colour, we cast a polished, neutral European French and direct the read to the exact strength you want. For content aimed squarely at a local market, we can lean into a more characterful regional delivery instead — you decide the balance during casting.