How We Make Bilingual Podcasts
We’re a podcast studio in Ottawa, Canada - of course we produce bilingual podcasts.
Many of our clients are government departments, national associations, or other organizations that need to put out content in both official languages: English and French. We even produce a German/English show (Ottawa hosts a lot of international organizations too).
Below you’ll find four ways we’ve used to produce bilingual podcasts for our clients, as well as some questions to guide you towards the best strategy for your organization.
Different Approaches
Some organizations have a strict requirement for everything to be exactly duplicated in each language; others want “equivalent” content for each; and then some just need the content to be “accessible” in each language.
The language composition of the target audience is an important consideration too. Organizations may want to go above and beyond their official content bilingualism policies depending on the proportion of their potential audience that speaks each language. And some choose to put additional resources into a part of their audience that has been neglected in the past.
So how we tackle the challenge of creating audio and video podcasts in two languages varies depending on client needs, internal resources, and budget.
Bilingual Podcasts: Four Ways
These four approaches to bilingual podcasting should be seen as a starting point. There are many other ways to do it. Not only that, but emerging AI translation and voice generation technologies are opening up new possibilities.
Let us know in the comments how you’ve approached bilingual podcasting.
1. Direct Audio or Video Translation
Example: Produce an English episode, then transcribe and translate it to produce a French script; then have French speakers re-record the script, and re-edit it into a French episode.
Frankly, this is usually not the best approach. It’s very time and labour intensive, and unless the script-readers are great voice actors, it doesn’t produce a very good final product.
That said, it may be the only option available if you’re required to produce an exact copy of the original product in a second language.
We may reconsider our negative view of this option as the quality of AI dubbing improves, since it has the potential to save a lot of time and money.
AI dubbing skips many of the steps listed above by taking an input of video or audio and directly spitting out audio or video in another language. The quality is a little hit or miss right now, but it’s a pretty neat party trick that’s sure to improve with time. And like most AI tools right now, a skilled human editor can help take AI output from a C- to B+.
Here’s a sample of ElevenLabs’ AI Dubbing in action:
2. Text Translation
Example: Produce a French video episode and add English subtitles.
This is a good option to make your content accessible to a larger audience. On the video side, it’s familiar to anyone who’s watched a subtitled movie. Audio-only podcasts get a translated transcript to read, which may prove less satisfying to the audience in that language.
We use Rev to produce high-quality (human produced) text translations and subtitles of english-first content, while GoTranscript provides the same services for anything that doesn’t start in English.
Human transcription and translation are still ahead of AI options, but the cost of human translation can be prohibitive (we’ve seen nearly CAD$500 for a 30-minute podcast). So like with everything else these days, there’s an AI option. Descript and other tools can produce surprisingly good transcriptions of the original language, and then DeepL or even Google Translate can take care of the translation. Tools like Veed.io also promise to produce translated subtitles using AI.
Whatever approach you take to producing translated text for your podcast—but especially if AI is involved—be sure to have it proof-read by a native speaker before publishing.
3. Create Two Equivalent Shows
Example: Producing a French podcast alongside a separate English podcast. Both shows cover similar topics, but usually with different hosts and guests.
Like option #1 above, this can be more labour intensive, but in this case we think the added time and costs are justified. Here you get genuine interviews or conversations that are so much more engaging for your audience than translated content.
We’ve seen clients do this with a single bilingual host, or two separate hosts. The same is true of guests: if they’re bilingual they can appear on both shows, if not, then separate guest bookings would be required.
4. Extend an “Olive Branch”
Example: Most episodes are produced in English, but every fifth episode is in French.
This approach makes sense if you know the vast majority of your target audience speaks just one language but you want to make an occasional peace offering to the remainder who speak another language. It can also work well in conjunction with the translated text option to make every episode at least accessible in both languages.
Especially if your regular host is bilingual, the gesture of addressing a topic or guest that’s of special interest to your French audience, in French, can go a long way towards helping that part of your audience feel seen and heard.
Promoting special content to the minority portion of your audience can also be a great way to test their uptake and response. If you get a lot of engagement, then you can consider upping the percentage of your episodes in that language, or switching to one of the other approaches above.
Bonus: How to Choose a Bilingual Podcasting Strategy
Your approach to bilingual podcasting depends on your organization’s policies and goals, budget, and internal resources available for the project. You can always contact us to discuss your podcasting plans and receive a quote but in the meantime here are a few questions to ask yourself when deciding on a bilingual podcast strategy:
What are the language demographics of my target audience?
What are my organization’s bilingual content policies or requirements?
Do I have a bilingual host? Or will I require two: one for each language?
Will my guests be bilingual? Can I find equivalent guests in each language?
Do I want two separate podcast feeds/channels or a single one?
How does the cost of the different approaches compare?
Do we have transcription/translation tools or services available internally?