webfact Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Thai Post’s 12 Hilarious Reasons Not To Google Translate Thai By Khaosod English Roast duck sanctuary and sweet-fitting Kayasart. Know ye millet grain? Few things provoke equal parts thought, confusion and laughter as the linguistic carnage that results when Thai collides with English via Google Translate. Full story: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/culture/net/2017/11/09/thai-posts-12-hilarious-reasons-not-google-translate-thai/ -- © Copyright Khaosod English 2017-11-09 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Somtamnication Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Food has never been a good object to translate it, from any language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Borzandy Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 The google fault again.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lgking Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 (edited) Truth be told... This is not Google (translate) fault. This is the way Thai's really think and speak. If you've lived here longer than 3 months, you will know that this is true. Edited November 9, 2017 by lgking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minnehaha Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 These are good fun. China has great ones too. Certainly Google has beauties as well. The real problem is people have no time or creative idea to get this in front of a native speaker. There is no shortage of them. One simple idea: instead of silly students asking "Farang what they like about Thailand " Why not have them sit down and work through translations for restaurant menus. The students could charge for the service. Most Thai kids think to work only when told to. No motivation or initiative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toybits Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 3 hours ago, Somtamnication said: Food has never been a good object to translate it, from any language. Unfortunately, this sign is no longer at Chiang Rai. Nuat Plamuek Yak (Demon Moustache Squid Roasts) was one of my favorite transliterations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakeupplease Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Someone should let Google know as in 20 years everyone on the planet will have to talk Thai according to an Asian self appointed Leader, so google will have to get their finger out. End of year quiz What where the top most stupid comments made in Asia in 2017 and by whom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddie61 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 My favorite is fried crap with whore’s dust (poo phat phong khali) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suradit69 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 4 minutes ago, wakeupplease said: What where the top most stupid comments made in Asia in 2017 and by whom? Did Google translate come up with the "What where ..." start to your question? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suradit69 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Many people do just fine without help from Google. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sportsman Pub Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 I know, I know. It's not food but still Hillarious. Trendy public toilets, sukhumvit soi 13, bangkok :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakeupplease Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 55 minutes ago, Suradit69 said: What where No I did is that ok with you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer90210 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, Minnehaha said: These are good fun. China has great ones too. Certainly Google has beauties as well. The real problem is people have no time or creative idea to get this in front of a native speaker. There is no shortage of them. One simple idea: instead of silly students asking "Farang what they like about Thailand " Why not have them sit down and work through translations for restaurant menus. The students could charge for the service. Most Thai kids think to work only when told to. No motivation or initiative. A fine idea and one could not nore agree with you. Allow me to share a similar issue, at a time when I was seeking to purchase some large household items. The shop assistant took over my poor negotiation skills and was offering a very symbolic "farang" discount. I hired a fine 20 year old Thai student fluent in both languages and she went over to the shop alone a few days later and got a substantial discount with delivery for the items. She was told to tell the shop assitant that the purchase was for her family and that she had got the cash from her "sugar daddy" abroad. And it worked !!! . And it was fully worth the commission I paid her for the job. Edited November 9, 2017 by observer90210 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Next stop NK Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Thai's have the 3rd worst English skills in Asia and dropping rapidly under the last few years. This should be the real subject (and I guess Google translate can only be as good as the people being able to do a proper translation) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer90210 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 4 minutes ago, Next stop NK said: Thai's have the 3rd worst English skills in Asia and dropping rapidly under the last few years. This should be the real subject (and I guess Google translate can only be as good as the people being able to do a proper translation) You have a point, but what about the Thai skills amongst westerners ? Is it any better my dear chap ?....not in my case anyhow !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaunduhpostman Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 There's a website dedicated to funny English at engrish dot com . You can send in your photos and/or browse their categories, tons of really funny stuff. Sadly probably the most mind blowingly screwed up English in Thailand used to be that found in Thai produced English text books about 10-15 years ago. With some of them it was clear the authors were going out of their way to give wrong information, there may even have been some malicious intent to propagate wrong English or just take people's money and essentially humiliate them for just wanting to improve or learn English. As I recall, I have seen textbooks where oojah is given as the word for elephant, baby clock for alarm clock, oof for money, whid for lie, humpy for fog. I'm serious, that stuff was really out there in text books. Casual perusal of textbooks recently, those I have seen are only riddled with spelling mistakes and other minor errors. Seems people get their English from internet where it is common to "loose" the football match or say "We didn't know 'were' we 'where' going. Still an improvement, thank gog for internet, tho I suppose any day now they'll be taking that away so we'll be back to loosing our oojahs in the humpy on our next elephant trek in Chiang Mai. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golden Triangle Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 18 minutes ago, observer90210 said: You have a point, but what about the Thai skills amongst westerners ? Is it any better my dear chap ?....not in my case anyhow !! I can't speak Thai to save my life and I have been here for 6 years so I'm with you on that one matey, but Thailand's (probably) biggest earner is tourism, the majority of tourists( yes, I know some people will argue this point) speak some if not very good, but some English, and that is where they let themselves down, rather than admit that the most spoken language after Mandarin or another Chinese dialect is English, his holiness last year declared that Thai would be a world language !! I know school teachers who teach English (Thais) but will not talk to me because they Non comprende ?? Says it all really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PerkinsCuthbert Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 22 minutes ago, observer90210 said: You have a point, but what about the Thai skills amongst westerners ? Is it any better my dear chap ?....not in my case anyhow !! Judging by the illiterate twaddle that is regularly dished up here by the denizens of Chonburi province, English-speaking expats have the poorest English skills among native speakers of that language, with the highest accolades going to the barstool warriors of the Kingdom's Favourite Seaside Resort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Next stop NK Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 (edited) 38 minutes ago, observer90210 said: You have a point, but what about the Thai skills amongst westerners ? Is it any better my dear chap ?....not in my case anyhow !! I don't live in Thailand, but Thailand gets around 30 million tourists per year (probably double if you ask TOT), , and laws prohibit guides to be non-thai. A country getting around 2.3 trillion TBH revenues per year in income from tourists cannot speak an international language, neither read real news from abroad except the censored news. I fail to see your point. Also, Thais speak one language only, many people from other nations speak two or three (I speak four), and you still say there is not a problem in the education system? Edited November 9, 2017 by Next stop NK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer90210 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 (edited) 23 minutes ago, Next stop NK said: I don't live in Thailand, but Thailand gets around 30 million tourists per year (probably double if you ask TOT), , and laws prohibit guides to be non-thai. A country getting around 2.3 trillion TBH revenues per year in income from tourists cannot speak an international language, neither read real news from abroad except the censored news. I fail to see your point. Also, Thais speak one language only, many people from other nations speak two or three (I speak four), and you still say there is not a problem in the education system? Not my intention to challenge your points. My point was that the humble chap driving my rented car, who has no idea where Sweden or Swtzerland could be on a map, speaks better english then I speak Thai.... With full recognition to the four languages you master, as you mention not living in Thailand, I may assume that the social-economical environment in your country has nothing that could be compared with the economical situation of Thailand. As for the translations via the web, if they are partially supervised by westeners on the other side of the world with no idea what a curry panang is , it could be somewhat of the cause for the problem IMHO. Edited November 9, 2017 by observer90210 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimmyJ Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 (edited) Using Google Translate on my phone to practice my (very basic) Thai, I attempted to say something innocent and basic in Thai (don't recall what exactly, something like "large hotel") and it gave the English translation as "f_cking machine". Edited November 9, 2017 by JimmyJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimmyJ Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baansgr Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Lamp chop was quite a popular dish in Greece years ago Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluespunk Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 3 hours ago, wakeupplease said: No I did is that ok with you Absolutely... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janner1 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 I recently asked Google to translate " would you like to go to dinner with me tonight " and the translation was intensely masterful if perhaps somewhat biblical, the translation goes as follows " I have been to the north and seen the light " at which time the will to live entirely left me and I resigned myself to eating alone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H508 Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 (edited) 4 hours ago, Shaunduhpostman said: Sadly probably the most mind blowingly screwed up English in Thailand used to be that found in Thai produced English text books about 10-15 years ago. With some of them it was clear the authors were going out of their way to give wrong information, there may even have been some malicious intent to propagate wrong English or just take people's money and essentially humiliate them for just wanting to improve or learn English. At my thai gf 's work, the owner's kid (probably 4th grade) had some English worksheets to do and he asked for my help... it was super easy - basically had a sentence in Thai, then 4-8 English words scrambled that you had to put in the right order to make a coherent English sentence. Half the sentences were okay, a quarter were strangely worded and no one would talk that way, and the other quarter were basically flat out wrong. Same gf is also trying to learn more English and has 2 books that are god awful and NO ONE would speak that way. Half the time I don't understand her when she says it in English to me as the words or phrases are so...archaic or strangely worded. Humorous as it shows the author of the book as this blonde haired, young American guy. No way that could be the case as the best I can figure, the book was written in 1920 and the person pretended to be Shakespeare. I didn't have the heart to tell my gf to throw those books away. I don't understand why she doesn't watch youtube videos of Thai's speaking English since she watches every other possible thing on youtube but she flat out refuses that advice. Edited November 9, 2017 by H508 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattayadon Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 10 hours ago, wakeupplease said: No I did is that ok with you 55555555 How's the survey going? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keesters Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 8 hours ago, PerkinsCuthbert said: Judging by the illiterate twaddle that is regularly dished up here by the denizens of Chonburi province, English-speaking expats have the poorest English skills among native speakers of that language, with the highest accolades going to the barstool warriors of the Kingdom's Favourite Seaside Resort. You seem to have an extreme distaste for Pattaya. There I named the city that you wouldn't/couldn't. You should keep your rude comments to yourself and not stereotype. Many Pattaya residents are extremely well educated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sydebolle Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 All the while the world is working on AI artificial intelligence while there is no translation engine/programme known to man which could do this job at least as good as homo sapiens ....... And if you're in a country like Thailand, where language teaching is done by the locals rather than the native speakers, combined with the face-losing fact of giggling whenever a student pronounces something wrong - then you've reached the nirvana of funnies. Latter applies to small mom and pop noodle shops (which I understand) to five star hotels with printed menus which never got proof-read prior to going to print ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoodlySquat Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Even when Google isn't involved... Thailand is the king of strange signs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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