Xiaohua: Welcome to RoundTable’s Word of the Week.欢迎来到圆桌议事RoundTable的词汇小百科栏目。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还是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，其实只是对口型的意思，所以说lip sync还有可能在电影后期制作的时候、或者给外国影片配音的时候也可以对口型，就是lip-synch。并且在有些游戏里面，当游戏中人物说话的时候，也需要对口型，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: 对口型这件事情可不光是中国才有。其实在美国有很多著名的歌手也曾经这么做过,比如说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: 在超级碗表演环节上演的那次lip-synching，实际上并不是真正意义上的对口型演唱，因为Red Hot Chilli Peppers的主唱是在真唱，但乐队的贝斯手和吉他手因为准备时间不足，所以只是假装在演奏，more like miming，哑剧表演或者双簧表演。但是对口型演唱到底是可以接受的呢还是不能接受的呢？

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: 所以当lip-synching是指对口型演唱时还是具有相当大争议的，主要是因为一方面表演会看上去很假，另一方面也无法反映歌手真实的水平。That’s the end of this edition of Word of the Week.