(Found) Needed – Content Creators for Language Tools Conversations

Please refer to this blog post about LT Conversations. 

We are now ready to hire content creators for English (North American) to build these conversations. We will post other languages here in the future. Here are the general requirements:

You should represent a team of 4 native speakers to make recordings of 100 X 6 min natural conversations plus transcripts (in the native language) for language learners. Your team should be 2 men and 2 women with good grammar and good pronunciation. We need 50 conversations between a man and a woman, 25 between 2 men, and 25 between 2 women. Recordings must be reasonably loud, clear and static free. Speak clearly and at normal speeds. Don’t speak too fast or slangy. Don’t speak too slowly or unnaturally. You must have access to editing tools. Have fun and laugh a lot - this is very important. It’s ok to joke around and even loose control a bit as long as you are nice to each other. 

The pay for this job is $10 per complete lesson (mp3 plus transcript), so it’s a $1000 job. Pay is in USD via Paypal. If you are interested, please send a 30 to 60 sec recording between a male and female member of your group, with a transcript. Please don’t go over 60 sec. 

If you get accepted for the job, you will be asked to create 6-minute conversations about given topics. Here are the guidelines, using the Tagalog language as an example:

• Please start the conversation something like this:

<Mary: Hi everybody, this is Mary!

John: And I’m John!

Mary: Welcome to “Language Tools Tagalog Conversations”. Hi John!

John: Hi Mary! What’s today’s topic?>

The whole thing should be in Tagalog except “Language Tools Tagalog Conversations”. You don’t have to use your real names, but please be consistent – keep your names next time you make a conversation. 

• You shouldn’t do this every time, but it’s good to tease each other a bit about the topic sometimes

<Mary: Oh, you’re going to like this. Were going to talk about the most famous tourist spot in the Philippines.

John: Manila?

Mary: No, I mean the most famous beach resort.

John: Ah, Palawan!

Mary: Haha, no silly. Ok, where is the most famous beach in the Philippines.

John: Boracay!

Mary: Yes, finally. Have you ever been there?>

• You should try to talk about things that would interest foreigners, and also things that Native speakers find interesting. For Boracay(a beach resort) you might discuss it’s beauty, talk about the huge number of tourists, problems with pollution, prices, quality of food, mention your own experiences or friend’s experiences, water sports, difficulty getting there, etc. (these are just suggestions – we want you to feel free with your creativity)

• These are supposed to be natural conversations, so please don’t read them off a script. We don’t want to sound like a play, and we don’t want to sound like Wikipedia. We want to sound like 2 friends having a fun and interesting conversation.

• Although we say “100% Tagalog”, we know that sometimes you will need to use a loanword. This is ok, but try to keep it to a minimum. The rule of thumb is if there is a good Tagalog word for something, try to use it.

• Please send us the recording and transcript when you are done so we can check your work.

Hi Leosmith,

I am interested in this job and I do have a good pronunciation, I used to do broadcast while I am in university. But I do not have male partner, is it possible that you will introduce a Chinese partner so we could do this conversation? Thanks.

I know a few Chinese speakers but they're all SEA Chinese, which is accented compared to standard. @Leo regarding the English VA team. What accents are preferred? I'm looking for partners but I'm just about the only American I know who is willing to work for those rates. I have a Brit male and potentially some ZA females.

Ivy.chao wrote:

Hi Leosmith,
I am interested in this job and I do have a good pronunciation, I used to do broadcast while I am in university. But I do not have male partner, is it possible that you will introduce a Chinese partner so we could do this conversation? Thanks.

Hi Ivy,

Sorry, but I'm looking to hire teams of 4.

Clayton.Henderson wrote:

I know a few Chinese speakers but they're all SEA Chinese, which is accented compared to standard. @Leo regarding the English VA team. What accents are preferred? I'm looking for partners but I'm just about the only American I know who is willing to work for those rates. I have a Brit male and potentially some ZA females.

I'm looking for North American English speakers (edited post above)

Michel wrote:

Do you want word for word transcriptions or perfect grammar ?

Yes on word for word. I want good grammar, say at the level of an average educated native speaker.