Working notes on sending a talking greeting in another language
If you only read one section, read the part about choosing the source image; it decides most of the result.
A lot of family and customer messages have to cross a language line: a birthday wish for a relative who does not read your first language, a short product line for a second market, a thank-you that should be heard rather than machine-translated in a chat box. Filming a fluent take you cannot confidently speak is awkward. Generating speech from a carefully written script, then lip-syncing it to a still, is one way to send something more personal than a block of text.
Fameo advertises talking videos in 80+ languages, with English, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, and French called out as examples. The workflow does not change because the language does. You still upload a photo or start from a template, add the script or an audio recording, and export a clip in minutes. What does change is the writing. Draft the message in the language it will be heard in, or have someone fluent review it, rather than pasting a raw machine translation you have not read aloud. Names, honorifics, and the difference between a formal and a familiar “you” are easy to get wrong and very easy for a recipient to notice.
Use a face you are allowed to animate, still front-facing and clearly lit. If you are sending a greeting, a pet, a drawing, or a willing relative is usually more appropriate than a stock portrait of a stranger. The make a photo talk with AI covers a standard talking still; switch to a specialty page if the subject is a pet or a cartoon. Generate a short version and play it for a speaker of that language if you can. You are checking pronunciation, tone, and whether the mouth movement still looks acceptable on sounds that may not exist in your first language.
Rights do not loosen because the clip is in translation. You still need consent for a real person’s likeness and voice, and you still may not impersonate someone. If the video is for a customer or a campaign, confirm that your plan allows commercial use — free-plan output is personal only — on the Fameo pricing page and in the terms.
A practical pattern is to keep a two-column note: the message in your language, and the approved version in the destination language, plus the still you will reuse. The next multilingual greeting then takes a few minutes rather than a new production. The point is not to pretend you are a native speaker on camera. The point is to send a short, clearly intended message that the other person can hear.
If something looks off, a better-lit source image usually fixes more than a rewritten script.