a1falang

Hi Rikker. Yes, I can read central Thai to a reasonable level Which "popular Thai web board sites" do you recommend? If I at least got native Isaan speakers to type everything accurately first, that would be a great start!

I have some audio conversations that need to be first transcribed and then translated into English. How would I find someone qualified or a translation service in the area? Not much in Google.

I used a US-based Mastercard debit card to withdraw 16,000 baht at an Bank of Ayudhya ATM. It didn't prompt me about the 150 baht fee, but it did ask if I would accept a conversion rate of 33.10. I chose "yes". The transaction that appears on my online statement however is US$492.03, which is a conversion rate of 30.75! I'm LIVID.

Thanks to everyone for the different analysis and inputs. I think I got it sorted now. I'm grinning like a crocodile at feeding time!

That's great input, meadish_sweetball. (Love your handle!) For the second one, the long line, a Thai friend of mine suggests that someone is sarcastically/jealously congratulating someone's friend for having dental work done, which has made their teeth สวยจังหู now and they don't look like the "old you" (คนเดิมเลย) anymore, but my friend doesn't know what ไม่มีเค้าโครงกิ่งเข้ means here.

Thanks, sbk. I'm not sure which part, sorry. I actually thought this was Isaan or northern Thai at first, but was told it was southern Thai.

Southern Thai in red:

อิๆๆๆ บอกแล้วให้แขบลบ

ก่อนอื่นต้องขอแสดงความยินดีเป็นอย่างแรงที่เพื่อนมีฟันเต็มจอแล้ว สวยจังหู ไม่มีเค้าโครงกิ่งเข้ คนเดิมเลย

Can anyone help?

Get their Mastercard debit card over at www.Payoneer.com Mine arrived in the post last week. Payouts in US$ from 2CO can be loaded onto the Payoneer card online, then you can go to any SCB ATM (haven't tried other banks yet) and withdraw. I got a rate of 33.6 baht per US$ for my withdrawal. I think Payonner's withdrawal fee is only US$2 or about 70 baht.

Interest rates here are crap, 8.35% on call in NZ.

I just use my NZ bank ATM card with the PLUS symbol and withdraw any monies needed as required.

Al money transfers, transactions are done using internet banking.

I do that in any country, not just Thailand.

I spend most time abroad, in LOS...

Hi, Zpete, I used to do that with my ANZ Night&Day card, which cost "only" NZ$7.50 with each withdrawal. However, I was shocked to discover a hidden "currency converstion charge" recently when checking my statement online. e.g.

ATM XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX SUB B ANGKOK FOREIGN CURRENCY AMT THB 15,000.00

INCL CURRENCY CONVERSION CHARGE $14.92 $611.99

So that's NZ$22.42 in fees for one withdrawal! Probably best to use a credit card. Still, can't beat those great oncall rates, eh?

Thanks for your reply, Moonfruit. So receipt numbers should use a completely different number range, so that the invoice numbers are in strict numerical order? That makes sense. I'm wondering why I'm getting conflicting advice at all on this important issue. What are other people's experiences?

The New Zealand First Party is nicknamed the New Zealand Farce Party, because of its populist grandstanding by its leader, Winston Peters. (I'm a Kiwi.) As for unfair immigration policy, RY12, well, Thailand doesn't exactly welcome immigrants with open arms. I know of a married American ex-pat who speaks fluent Thai and has 5 children with her Thai husband, but she still has to report her address to Immigration every 90 days. And of course, in NZ, a Thai can own a company, property etc. with full rights, whereas I can't here.

Hello, I'm confused about the number sequencing when issuing tax invoices and receipts. When an invoice is issued, it obviously uses one number. When the customer pays later, does the receipt have to match the invoice or simply use whatever number is next in sequence? For example:

Sequential numbering only:

DATE..................TYPE.....................NUMBER

Jan 1....1st invoice for 1st customer.........#100001

Jan 4....2nd invoice for 2nd customer.........#100002

Jan 8....3rd invoice for 3rd customer.........#100003

Jan 16...1st customer pays, so issue receipt..#100004 (can put "Ref inv. #100001")

Jan 22...4th invoice for 4th customer.........#100005

Jan 28... 2nd customer pays, so issue receipt..#100006 (can put "Ref inv. #100002")

Matching numbering:

DATE TYPE NUMBER

Jan 1....1st invoice for 1st customer.........#100001

Jan 4....2nd invoice for 2nd customer.........#100002

Jan 8....3rd invoice for 3rd customer.........#100003

Jan 16...1st customer pays, so issue receipt..#100001

Jan 22...4th invoice for 4th customer.........#100004

Jan 28...2nd customer pays, so issue receipt..#100002

To me, reusing a number for a receipt that an invoice was previously assigned doesn't seem right, but I'd rather be corrected if I'm wrong!

Thanks, Lucifer. Hope you're not just playing Devil's Advocate.

I plan(ned) to offer 1.5 for extra hours worked weeknights (after 6 pm) and weekends, and 2.0 times for public holidays. Is that not according to the law? I'd rather keep it simple for my employees, so they can follow the formula easily and know they're not being cheated.

Thanks, v8tfcorty. I never thought about multiplying by 12 months and dividing by 52 weeks. Let's see if anyone knows whether this is the official way of doing it for payroll/accounting purposes

Overtime is calculated on an hourly basis, so how to calculate the base hourly rate for an employee working Monday-Friday 9am-6pm and earning 12k a month?

Thanks for the replies. Better safe than sorry - don't want to order some books and then get hit with excessive duties.

Subject pretty much says it all.

Using acrobate reader v8 I have just tried :

select text

copy text

paste into a notepad document.

It worked for Thai and English but I lost the formatting, retained paragraphs but lost centre on page etc.

On one document I also got the option 'paste with formating' that retained the bullet markings. But the other two documents did not give me that option.

Is this method too easy?

PS Obviously you must have Thai script enabled on your computer.

Thanks, I might try that, although I usually avoid the latest versions of software, as they're usually bloated with lots of useless extra features (I still use Acrobat 5, ACDSee 5 and Photoshop 5.5, useful for 99% of things I need to do). Interesting about the "Paste with Formatting" option. My document is 108 pages with lots of bullet lists, so losing all that would be a BIG problem. The thing is, last year, I found a way of converting a Thai PDF to a Thai .doc through using some software or plug-in, and I can't remember what it was!

Yes, I need the same thing, a program that converts a PDF (with embedded Thai and English fonts) into .rtf or .doc or even .txt (no complex layout, just simple block paragraphs). I can open and view in Adobe Acrobat 5 no problem, and save as .rtf., but the Thai appears as scrambled characters.

A lot of translation services advertise "certified" translation. What does it mean? Does the Thai goverment certify or license translation companies or individual translators as meeting minimum standards or passing some sort of competency test? This seems different to "authentication", something the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does, but only for translations of documents/certificates issued by the Thai government.

If the "sexy movie" touter on Silom is cute, I use a play on words in Thai and say "mai ao khrup, ao khun dee-gwa" or "Don't want it, thanks, I'd rather have you" with a smile and a wink.

Well, I'd say it if I had any balls. And it's probaby not grammatically correct, anyway.

Thanks, but I want to print Thai directly from IE. The website we are using doesn't allow you to highlight text, copy and paste into Word. I also have already checked encoding and settings. Like I said, I want to print directly from IE. It shouldn't be impossible.....but maybe it is with our current set-up. Thanks for your suggestions, anyway.

We use Windows 98 and ME/2000, and IE6. We can view/read Thai text fine in IE, but whenever we want to print, all the Thai disappears on the printout, no matter what printer we use. I can't believe no one in Thailand can print Thai directly from IE to a printer, so can anyone here suggest a solution or workaround? Thanks.

Since it's computer books you're after are you absolutely certain you can't get them in Thailand.

It's just the computer bookshop in Pantip has a pretty reasonable collection and they're mostly the South Asia editions, so are cheaper than buying them in the UK. (Although the UK isn't a cheap place to buy anything).

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Yes, after my friend brought from Singapore, I compared the prices and they weren't that much different, not really worth the extra effort. Where I went, all the books on display were sealed, so I couldn't browse any others I found interesting, which seemed a bit stupid.

I did recently find an old CD in the office of various "Bible" software guides (e.g. The Adobe Photoshop 6.0 Bible), which presumably contains the entire contents of the book using OCR to convert to text after someone scans the pages manually. Are these CDs still produced?