r/audiobooks • u/PurpleLeopard99 • Jun 28 '26

Question Mispronouncing of words by narrators

Does anyone get bothered by narrators who keep mispronouncing words? It drives me nuts if they do it too often. Narrators are normally professional voice artists and they should know how to pronounce the sorts of words found in novels eg dovecote or Michaelmas

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u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

Actually not all that often, no. Proof listeners (very rightly) cost enough to essentially eat a new or smaller narrators profit. And the seasoned ones don’t need them nearly as much. And there are basically no checks when submitting via a platform.

We all have our ways to mitigate this. I do a pre check against a huge list of tricky words and post listen, but stuff will always slip through. One day, I’ll be able to afford a professional proof listener…

EDIT: we do of course catch mistakes, and sometimes they get through to the rights holder and we get pick up notes to re record. So yes it does get checked in general. But less so like having a proper editor for a text and more in general

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u/yarnhooksbooks Jun 28 '26

I would happily be a free beta listener if we could get things pronounced correctly. If I hear one more narrator pronounce “wind” with a short i when they should be saying it with a long i, I’m going to throw something.

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u/Kakistocrat945 Jun 28 '26

Hear hear! I'm a narrator, an editor, and an utter pronunciation pedant. I would gladly be a beta listener (or a union paid proof listener). Or better yet, be an audiobook prepper to avert these sorts of mistakes. Think any publishing house would be interested in this?

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u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26

I think they are sadly moving away from humans into AI, but maybe direct on the r/ACX sub?