Trung, 28, from Binh Thuan, has a special job unfamiliar to most people – vocal mimicry.

Trung's parents are from the north. He grew up in Gia Lai in the central region and studied at a university in HCM City in the south. so, Trung has been living in an environment with diverse accents.

In 2018, he gave up studying at university because some problems occurred with his family. 

One day, Trung, who was then a member of a football club, was found having the voice of a football commentator. However, Trung thought that he still had weak points with his voice, so he began imitating the beautiful voices of celebrities on TVs.

Within a short time, Trung practiced speaking and tried to act as a football commentator in HCM City. However, at that time, he was not sure if he should become a commentator and he did not know what he needed to do to take this long-term job.

With a passion for agriculture, Trung decided to give up the commentator job. He went to many cities and provinces and worked as a hired worker at farms and gardens. Sometimes he was in Mang Den, sometimes in Da Lat. He also once went to Khanh Hoa and then to Cu Chi, where he sold worms.

However, after a period in agricultural production, Trung decided to return and earn money with his voice.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Trung spent time to study, listen, practice and improve his voice. At that time, Trung lived in Gia Lai, where he met many friends from Hue City, so he could practice his voice with central people’s accents.

Deciding that he would take the job for the long term, Trung learned to speak with a southern accent. After three to four years of practice, Trung began making money with his southern accent as well.

Trung’s major source of income now comes from reading advertisements.

“Since 2021, I've been doing a lot in the advertisement industry. To date, I have sounded thousands of ads,” he said.

The job brings a satisfactory income. In general, advertisers pay based on the popularity and fame of voice actors.

‘Now I can receive VND3-3.5 million for 30 seconds of ads. If I dub a video, the prices are VND2,500-3,000 per word,” he said. 

Earlier this year, Trung began spending time teaching voice acting via online lessons. His students want to practice for different purposes, not just working as an MC or reading ads.

Since online sales have boomed and many people want to build up their personal channels on social media, they realize they need to have beautiful voice and good pronunciation skills.

According to Trung, many learners are owners of businesses and managers who have to speak before the crowds. They need to learn how to speak to catch the attention of the public and avoid shortness of breath.

Some other learners think their voice is not attractive enough, which affects their life and job promotion, so they come to see Trung to fix the problems.

One of his students was a woman who was working at a state agency whose job was receiving citizens every day.

“Her job was solving disputes among citizens and she always felt tired and stressed after every working day. When I was talking to her, I realized that she was in a tense mood,” Trung recalled.

Just after 2 or 3 lessons, the woman could speak with a gentle voice, thus attracting people to listen to her. Controlling her voice also helped her adjust her emotions.

This improvement immediately brought efficiency to her work. One day a citizen came to see her and made a complaint with a harsh attitude.

If the woman had seen the citizen in the past, she would have reacted harshly to him. But after practicing her voice with Trung, she behaved the other way. She lowered her tone, spoke more slowly, and made her voice sound softer and more emotional.

This made the citizen become more cooperative. He reported what happened with him  to find a reasonable solution.

Trung believes that voice plays a very important role in communications and behavior, and affects everyone’s life.

Nguyen Thao