The Master Guide / 10 Voice and lip sync · Voice and Arabic dialects
The native reviewer
A native ear of the exact dialect passes every Arabic line, spoken or sung, never only the key lines (decided). Transcription normalises dialect away, so only an ear can judge it.
A native ear of the exact dialect passes every Arabic line, spoken or sung, never only the key lines (decided). Transcription normalises dialect away, so only an ear can judge it.
Who passes each dialect. You find and name the people per project.
Dialect | Who passes it |
Your own dialect, and MSA | You, recorded as your acceptance, never as "native-checked" (see The brief and research → Dialect rules) |
Sa'idi | A native Sa'idi listener. Until one is named for the project, a native Egyptian ear decides (yours, if Egyptian is your own dialect), and the line is marked "not native-checked" (decided) |
Saudi and Gulf | The native Saudi or Gulf reviewer |
Any other dialect | A native reviewer of that dialect |
What they judge: the dialect's markers; drift towards MSA; prosody, stress and register; brand words in context; and the English-quality bar (see Voice and Arabic dialects → The voice route). Markers to listen for: in Cairene, jīm as a hard g and qāf as a glottal stop; in Najdi, qāf as g, and its feminine ending; in Hijazi, its own markers.
Saudi, Gulf and every other non-Egyptian dialect stay drafts until their native reviewer passes them; you approve the final. Sung lines follow the same rule (see Music → Sung lyrics and the real singer).
Record each verdict in the listener's own words, with who accepted the line and when (see The brief and research → Dialect rules).