There are two types of dubs in the Spanish-speaking world; the Spanish (also known as Castilian) dub and the Neutral (also known as Latino) dub, whose difference we'll explain in a moment. As with other languages, the process of dubbing has become an entire industry complete with famous studios, voice actors and celebrities. The most commonly-dubbed language is English for obvious reasons, however, the increasing popularity of Doramas, Turkish soaps and Brazilian telenovelas in Latin America has created an increasing market for dubbing Korean, Turkish and Portuguese productions. Anime (also very popular in Latin America and Spain) is also often dubbed, however, most of the time dubbing studios re-dub using the English version's script as domain of Japanese is not as widespread.
As mentioned before, there are two main types of Spanish for dubbing:
- Neutral Spanish, also known as Latino Spanish - as in from Latin Americanote . "Neutral Spanish" was created in Mexico in the middle of the 20th century as the country began dubbing American and European films into Spanish for international Spanish-speaking audiences. To put it simply, it is a central Mexican accent with its tonal influences removed, and a dialect that typically strays away from slang that could peg the dub to a certain territory, using the most commonly used words in the Spanish dictionary instead. For example, the English word boss is often translated as jefe, despite patrón being more commonly used in Mexico, but is not as universal elsewhere. Similarly, Neutral Spanish uses ustedes for the second person of the plural which is universally used in the Americas but not in Spain and uses tú for the second person of the singular despite not being as universal. This is generally respected by convention and, for example, dubbing studios in countries like Argentina and Uruguay that have a long tradition of voseo (the use of vos for the second person of the singular) would use tu when dubbing. Sometimes, when a character in the original work has a British accent, as an in-joke the dub will use a Castilian accent (when everyone speaks with a British accent, as with a British show, this is overlooked for obvious reasons). Something similar happens with other foreign accents, for example, Jamaican accents are often replaced with a Cuban or Afro-Caribbean accent.
- Castilian Spanish, also known as Spaniard Spanish, European Spanish and Iberian Spanish, is the one used for Spain. While Neutral Spanish dubs (usually) make an effort to cut down on the slang for the sake of being marketable to all territories in Latin America, Castilian Spanish dubs don't hold back and show they are recorded in Spain, for Spain. Do note however that Spain also has different accents and dialects within it, thus making Castilian Spanish also a form of "neutral" Spanish that is essentially a reformed type of Madrilenian in a similar way to how Latino Spanish deviates from Mexican Spanish. Another good analogy would be "network English" used on US television.
Another difference is that both types of dubs translate words from English into the most commonly used counterparts used in each territory; for example computer is computadora in Latin America and ordenador in Spain, cell phone is celular in Latin America and móvil in Spain (similar to how it's "cell" in the US and "mobile" in the UK), and so on.
Although it's difficult to really get exact data on this, it's a common observation that Spaniard dubs generally tend to stick somewhat closer to the original script, while Latin American dubs tend to take more liberties with the dialogue. Of course, neither dub is exempt from awkward and strange translations, and both can be fantastic as well.
Viewers of one continent generally do not enjoy the other's dubbing, which unfortunately generates some really nasty Flame Wars on the Internet, specially on YouTube. Although there are some people from both territories who try to put some peace between both sides and recognize the talent work in both dubs and/or self-acknowledge their more humoristic flaws with good faith banter, unfortunately they're still a minority when compared to the overwhelming amount of unpleasant out-for-blood arguments you find in pretty much EVERY Spanish dub clip on video sites.
A lot people say that Spaniard dubs are the target of this vitriol far more often than Latin American dubs, and while statistics support this, this is mainly due to the fact Latin American audiences far outnumber Spaniard ones: there are around 483 million native Spanish speakers in the world and Spain's population is less than 47 million. You do the math. This means it's more likely for a Latin American bad faith actor to find a Spaniard dub clip and leave an unprovoked insulting comment than the other way around. But make no mistake, that "other way around" is also far from uncommon.
Although some people point out that First Installment Wins is a big reason for this, as in, which ever dub you watch first, is the one that you will enjoy the most, regardless of objective quality. Good examples for this are, for Spain, the Disney Animated Canon. Up to The Little Mermaid (1989), Spain received the Latin American Spanish dubs, but these are far more fondly remembered by Spaniard Disney fans than the Spaniard redubs that Disney made later on in the late 90s and early 2000s. In the case of Latin America, a good example would be Misha the Bear Cub, the famous Soviet anime based on the 1980s Moscow Olympics mascot that was fully dubed in Castillian Spanish and was pretty popular in Latin America. A mixed example is Saint Seiya, or to be more specific, the opening song, which was an original song made in Spain (albeit likely based on the French opening
) for the series in the early 90s and was used in the Latin American dub too (which was otherwise done entirely in Mexico). Latin American fans absolutely adore the Spaniard intro, and prefer it to the actual Latin American version of the original Japanese opening that was recorded years later. Of course, these examples are quite rare, but are still worth bringing up.
The use of localisms became a subject of controversy in later years specially in Latin America, to the point that it was eventually forbidden by Cartoon Network. Whilst some works like The Simpsons and Adventure Time were famous for the use of occasional Mexican slang that viewers from other countries might find funny or charming, the overuse of it caused backlash over cases like The Croods and The Big Bang Theory. Spain went through a similar phase in the late 90s, particularly in comedies broadcasted in the TV channel Antena 3, which started to use heavy localism, and even Spanish popular culture references (including mentioning local celebrities that no American would know about) in dubs of shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Sabrina the Teenage Witch or Family Matters. However, Spaniard audiences found this practice distracting at best and cringe worthy at worst, so it was abandoned just a few years later.
