Retat put the headline number plainly. “It usually takes 50 to 60 people to produce a single dubbed version,” she said, as reported by the Korean outlet Digital Today. “If you dub into 10 languages, that means 500 people take part.”<\/p>\n
Netflix said it can now provide dubbing in 36 languages and subtitles in 33, working with 122 partners across four regions: the United States and Canada, Europe with the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The occasion was Korean content, and the numbers there are big too. Netflix said 80 percent of its members worldwide have watched something Korean, and more than 200 Korean titles have made its global Top 10.<\/p>\n
![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.thevoicerealm.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/n-booth-trix.jpg\")
\u00a9 The Voice Realm<\/p><\/div>\n
Who’s in the room for one dubbed version<\/h2>\n
Fifty people sounds like a lot until you list the jobs. Retat named them: voice actors, translators, dubbing script adapters, directors, sound engineers and quality inspectors. Each of those is a real profession, and on a long series several people do each one.<\/p>\n
The script adapter is the job most viewers have never heard of, and it’s the one that makes a dub watchable. A straight translation is almost never the right length. The adapter rewrites every line so it fits the time the actor on screen has their mouth open, lands its open vowels where the mouth opens wide, and still sounds like something a person would say. Then a director casts and records it, line by line, to picture. Then engineers mix it so it sits inside the original sound, and inspectors check every line against the picture before it goes out.<\/p>\n
Retat’s point, as Digital Today summarised it, was that dubbing isn’t a secondary task and that localisation is in effect a second production. She has said the same in English before. In a 2024 Netflix article on Korean dubbing she put it this way: “Dubbing is like a second production. We connect with the original creators to recreate the atmosphere and content in target languages. We make sure our artists and technicians feel like they’re part of the show, not an afterthought.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.thevoicerealm.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/n-adapter-portra.jpg\")
\u00a9 The Voice Realm<\/p><\/div>\n
Where the work is<\/h2>\n
The 122 partners are the detail voice actors should hold on to. Netflix doesn’t run its own booths in every country. It works with dubbing studios around the world, and those studios are the ones that cast, direct and pay. If you want this work, the studio near you, or the studio that records your language, is the door.<\/p>\n
Taste varies a lot from country to country. The Korean business paper Herald Corporation reported that, by Netflix’s account, viewers in France, Germany and Italy lean towards dubbing, while Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK lean towards subtitles. Van der Poel said the choice between the two is itself something to plan for each market. Netflix’s 2024 article added that Brazil, Mexico and the rest of Latin America show strong demand for dubbing, and that over 40 percent of viewing of its branded Korean unscripted series used a dub.<\/p>\n
The roundtable also showed how much one prestige film gets. Lee Chang-dong’s new film Possible Love<\/em> arrives on 6 November with a long list of language tracks, and the menu below shows just how long.<\/p>\n \u00a9 The Voice Realm<\/p><\/div>\n Inevitably, the room asked about AI translation and AI dubbing. Netflix’s answer, as Digital Today reported it, was that AI could be a tool to support the work of creators and professionals but would not replace them, and that human expertise matters most for delicate emotional expression.<\/p>\n Herald Corporation’s report quoted Retat more directly, in Korean that we’ve translated back into English: “AI can assist with the work, but it is only a tool that supports specialists.” And: “Localization is an art that requires human emotion and creativity.” Treat the exact wording with care, since both lines have been through two languages, but the meaning is consistent across both reports.<\/p>\n Is that a promise? No. It’s a company describing its approach on a given day, and companies change their minds. It is, though, Netflix’s senior director for global content localisation saying in public, in front of the Korean industry, that a dub is a performance made by people. Voice actors negotiating with studios can point to that.<\/p>\n The best moment of the roundtable was a single word. Translator Darcy Paquet, who wrote the English subtitles for Possible Love<\/em>, described a scene where a character is surprised that a married couple call each other by their names. A literal English line would have made no sense, or worse, taught overseas viewers the wrong thing about Korea. After talking it through with Lee Chang-dong and the production team, he kept the Korean word “oppa” in the English subtitles.<\/p>\n “We want the audience to forget it’s a dub and feel the authenticity of the original work.”<\/p>\n John DeMita, Netflix, 2024<\/span><\/div>\n DeMita made the dubbing side of the same point. According to Herald Corporation, he said a word like “oppa” needs the relationship between the characters to come through in the word choice and in the voice acting. That’s the part of the job no script can do on its own. The adapter can choose the word. The actor has to make an English speaking audience feel the warmth, the teasing or the respect inside it.<\/p>\n For voice actors, that’s the real job description of dubbing in one sentence. You’re not reading a translation. You’re playing a person from another culture, in your language, without losing who they are.<\/p>\n \u00a9 The Voice Realm<\/p><\/div>\n First, the work is real and it’s growing in more languages than English. Thirty six dubbed languages means thirty six local industries of actors, directors and adapters. If you speak a second language natively, that’s worth more than ever. If English is your language, the English dubs of Korean, Japanese, Spanish and other shows are a steady stream in their own right.<\/p>\n Second, it’s a craft with its own skills. Matching the mouth, hitting the timing on the first take, and playing big emotion inside a line that’s half a second too short are all things you can practise at home. Our guide to what lip sync dubbing really asks of you<\/a> walks through them, and if you’re still deciding which road to take, we’ve also weighed up dubbing against other voice acting<\/a>.<\/p>\n Third, find the studios. A dubbing career starts with the local studios that hold contracts with streamers. Learn which ones record your language, follow their casting calls, and when you get a session, behave like part of a crew of fifty: prepared, quick to take direction, easy to work with. The same habits that get you rebooked on commercial work apply here, and our piece on taking direction in a live session<\/a> is a good place to start.<\/p>\n Fourth, read your contracts. Netflix’s line on AI is welcome, but the paperwork you sign with a studio is what actually governs how your recordings can be used. Ask what the recording is for, how long it can be used, and whether it can be used to train anything.<\/p>\n \u00a9 The Voice Realm<\/p><\/div>\n We like hearing a streamer say out loud that one dubbed version is the work of fifty or sixty people. Dubbing has been treated as an afterthought for a long time, by audiences who mock it and by producers who budget it last. Netflix’s own numbers say otherwise: hundreds of people per title, partners on every continent, and a senior director calling it a second production.<\/p>\n The AI question isn’t settled, and nobody should pretend it is. But for now a streaming service that dubs into 36 languages is publicly backing the people who make it. If you’ve been curious about dubbing, this is a good week to start learning the craft, and to start looking up the studios that record your language.<\/p>\n Sources: “Netflix says it deploys up to 60 people per dubbed language, works with 122 partners worldwide”<\/a>, Digital Today, 15 October 2026; “Netflix deploys up to 60 specialists per language”<\/a>, Herald Corporation, 15 October 2026 (quotations translated from Korean); “How Netflix dubbing connects the world to K content”<\/a>, Netflix, 17 June 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Netflix says one dubbed version takes 50 to 60 people and that AI won’t replace them. What its Seoul roundtable means for voice actors who want dubbing work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[235,36,425],"tags":[783,780,781,785,782,779,784],"class_list":["post-6726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-voice-acting-voice-actor-2","category-voice-over-industry","category-voice-realm-news","tag-ai-dubbing","tag-dubbing-voice-actors","tag-dubbing-work","tag-korean-drama-dubbing","tag-localisation","tag-netflix-dubbing","tag-voice-acting-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"Graphic](\"https:\/\/www.thevoicerealm.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/nf-menu.png\")
AI was the question everyone asked<\/h2>\n
Why “oppa” stayed in the subtitles<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.thevoicerealm.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/n-sofa-snapshot.jpg\")
What this means if you want dubbing work<\/h2>\n
![\"Graphic](\"https:\/\/www.thevoicerealm.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/nf-board.png\")
Our take<\/h2>\n