Xiaohua: Welcome to RoundTable’s Word of the Week.歡迎來到圓桌議事RoundTable的詞匯小百科欄目。This week we’re going to talk about the word “lip sync.”

John: Yeah, so “lip sync.” Actually, lip sync can be spelled a few different ways. Obviously l-i-p is the first. The second word “sync,” which can be spelled with an “h” or without an “h.” So it can be, s-y-n-c-h or just s-y-n-c.

XH: That’s right. Lip肯定是嘴唇的意思啦。Synch不管是s-y-n-c還是s-y-n-c-h都是同步。It’s derived from the word synchronization, right?

John: Exactly. And interestingly enough, lip syncing is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. And so this can be applied not just to music, as we know with the Spring Festival Gala, but it’s also used quite extensively in film production, dubbing of foreign language films. Also, for all you gamers out there, it’s also used in strategy video games, especially during the cut scenes, when you have to sync the movements of the lips of the cartoon characters with the actors’ voices.

XH: That’s interesting! Lip sync并不一定是指假唱，其實只是對口型的意思，所以說lip sync還有可能在電影后期制作的時候、或者給外國影片配音的時候也可以對口型，就是lip-synch。并且在有些游戲里面，當游戲中人物說話的時候，也需要對口型，lip-synch。

John: So there’s been a bit of controversy here in China with the singer from the Spring Festival Gala, singer Da Zhao Wei. He’s been criticized for some of his comments but also for lip syncing. And interestingly enough, I thought that in the US it wasn’t very common, but it turns out, lip syncing is not as uncommon as you might think. For example, Michael Jackson, in his 1983 performance on the television special “Motown 25,” when he sung “Billy Jean,” that was in fact lip synced.

XH: 對口型這件事情可不光是中國才有。其實在美國有很多著名的歌手也曾經這么做過,比如說Michael Jackson. And I guess in China one the most famous lip syncing sessions happened during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games when the girl Lin Miaoke actually lip synced and it was another girl, Yang Peiyi, whose voice was actually being used.

John: Yeah. Exactly. So in 2008, for the opening ceremony. But also, if you look at for example the Superbowl recently with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, actually, the lead singer, did in fact sing but the bassist and guitarist, because there was not enough time, they actually did a form of lip syncing, but its more accurately referred to as “miming.” They were miming playing their instruments rather than actually playing.

XH: 在超級碗表演環節上演的那次lip-synching，實際上并不是真正意義上的對口型演唱，因為Red Hot Chilli Peppers的主唱是在真唱，但樂隊的貝斯手和吉他手因為準備時間不足，所以只是假裝在演奏，more like miming，啞劇表演或者雙簧表演。但是對口型演唱到底是可以接受的呢還是不能接受的呢？

John: Yeah, I think in the United States, while on the one hand there are some fairly prominent cases, in general it is actually frowned upon, because it does seem as if, you, that its not genuine. It feels a little bit fake and also if you are a performer, you are a singer, you should actually have some real talents in doing that. Whereas it seems that with lip syncing in some cases at least, it has that feeling of making the performance actually quite fake.

XH: 所以當lip-synching是指對口型演唱時還是具有相當大爭議的，主要是因為一方面表演會看上去很假，另一方面也無法反映歌手真實的水平。That’s the end of this edition of Word of the Week.