The Two Bangkok English-language Newspapers

[chevykanteve]

During the past several months the quality of English-language usage has been dropping in the two Bangkok English daily newspapers (ONLINE, at least). I'm not just talking about grammar mistakes, which are very frequent now. It's increasingly difficult to understand what some of the articles are about. A recent example (=this evening) is as follows:

Court drops complaint to cancel arrest warrants

The Criminal Court dropped on Wednesday a complaint by two men who are calling for their arrest warrants in connection to the New Year's eve be revoked.

The Court said police have authority to issue the warrants as their investigation into the fatal attack are still in progress.

After a two-hourt court hearing, both Pratya Preechavej and Yutthaphong Kittisriworraphan were escorted to Prawet police station for question for their suspected involvement in the bomb attacks at a department store.

Police have released video footage showing two suspects walking in the department store on December 31. Police also issued arrest warrants against the two men. Pratya and Yutthapphong claimed they were two men in the video footage but they were not the bombers.

They then lodged their complaint to the court on Tuesday to have arrest warrants revoked,

In the hearing, Pol Maj Gen Jate Mongkholhatthee, a senior investigator, said police had verified video footage taken from security cameras at the complex to support police's theory that the two suspects really carried out the attack.

The two men only looked similar to the suspects, but not the same persons.

The Nation

How does the last sentence ('The two men...') rationally tie in with everything else?

[meadish_sweetball]

That's the result you get if you don't run the text by a professional editor before publishing.

It looks terrible, and does not help their reputation. Perhaps the idea is to be able to compete with the Thai language dailies for fresh info. But if that is their aim they are shooting themselves in the foot with articles such as the above.

[steveromagnino]

That's the result you get if you don't run the text by a professional editor before publishing.

It looks terrible, and does not help their reputation. Perhaps the idea is to be able to compete with the Thai language dailies for fresh info. But if that is their aim they are shooting themselves in the foot with articles such as the above.

Both are overflowing with farangs sitting looking stressed and overworked; not exactly spring chickens either for the most part last time I looked.

Maybe those are some of the 'weird retirees' referred to in an earlier thread.

[jeebusjones]

Maybe those are some of the 'weird retirees' referred to in an earlier thread.

[khall64au]

That's the result you get if you don't run the text by a professional editor before publishing.

It looks terrible, and does not help their reputation. Perhaps the idea is to be able to compete with the Thai language dailies for fresh info. But if that is their aim they are shooting themselves in the foot with articles such as the above.

Both are overflowing with farangs sitting looking stressed and overworked; not exactly spring chickens either for the most part last time I looked.

Maybe those are some of the 'weird retirees' referred to in an earlier thread.

Heard from an ex-Nation editor that both EL dailies are cutting back on their foreign editors. May explain the new Tinglish text...

[Sing_Sling]

I would doubt that the majority of posters here would notice the mistakes . . . of course that's not an excuse for falling standards.

[toptuan]

I teach English for Journalism at the University level, and have used The BKK Post and Nation as supplementary research/illustrative resources for our class work.

Up until a year ago, they were good examples. Now I have to use them as negative examples of grammar, spelling, yellow journalism, outright plagiarism and misleading/unclear headline quality. Harder to teach by negative example, though. Those disbelieving stares from students...

Edited March 29, 2007 by toptuan

[Jahil]

I am very happy to read your posts. I was thinking that I was the only one having problems to understand these.

As English is not my native language I was thinking that the problem was mine.

I feel much better now

[andook]

I would doubt that the majority of posters here would notice the mistakes . . . of course that's not an excuse for falling standards.

Thanks for that observation there, Keats. Now conjugate the verb, to "condescend" please....

[mbkudu]

I'm still trying to figure out why suspects agree to public crime re-enactments without a trial first or even talking to a lawyer first. Sorry, off topic.

[toptuan]

I would doubt that the majority of posters here would notice the mistakes . . . of course that's not an excuse for falling standards.

Thanks for that observation there, Keats. Now conjugate the verb, to "condescend" please....

Yes, probably most of us graduated from 8th grade, and could catch these primary-school mistakes...

[naka]

Their English is bad, but their arithmetic is even worse.

They just cannot seem to get their collective heads around numbers,

and make some idiotic conversions for Baht to other currencies.

Naka.

[Sing_Sling]

I would doubt that the majority of posters here would notice the mistakes . . . of course that's not an excuse for falling standards.

Thanks for that observation there, Keats. Now conjugate the verb, to "condescend" please....

Yes, probably most of us graduated from 8th grade, and could catch these primary-school mistakes...

Ah . . .conjugation . . . my weak spot.

Didn't we have a poll not so long ago and it turned out we have ever so many tertiary qualified posters here?

Degrees by correspondence have a lot to answer for . . .

[andook]

I used to think that "conjugation" was something to do with shagging. Thats the only reason i looked it up.... "Conjugal Rights" etc.

[PhilHarries]

I have to admit I didn't realise how little I knew about the English language until I learnt Spanish. Failed my eleven plus, went to a secondary modern and left with a handful of second rate CSE's. But even I have noticed a distinct decline in the standard of English in the Post.

[samran]

They really need to keep the services or either native English speakers, or professional translators.

I used to have this problem when in a previous life, I was handed a pile of documents in Thai to translate into English. If you aren't a proffessionally trained translator (and I wasn't), you fall into the rut of the English being constrained by the bounds of the Thai thai language you are translating from. It is worse when you don't have a way with words either. Thus, you get the Tinglish, or a rather mechanical english language exposition of what you are trying to communicate.

[chevykanteve]

That's the result you get if you don't run the text by a professional editor before publishing.

It looks terrible, and does not help their reputation. Perhaps the idea is to be able to compete with the Thai language dailies for fresh info. But if that is their aim they are shooting themselves in the foot with articles such as the above.

Both are overflowing with farangs sitting looking stressed and overworked; not exactly spring chickens either for the most part last time I looked.

Maybe those are some of the 'weird retirees' referred to in an earlier thread.

Heard from an ex-Nation editor that both EL dailies are cutting back on their foreign editors. May explain the new Tinglish text...

If in fact they have cut back on foreign (=native English) editors, then I'm sure that is the explanation for the new Tinglish text. I figured something like that was the case.

[chevykanteve]

I teach English for Journalism at the University level, and have used The BKK Post and Nation as supplementary research/illustrative resources for our class work.

Up until a year ago, they were good examples. Now I have to use them as negative examples of grammar, spelling, yellow journalism, outright plagiarism and misleading/unclear headline quality. Harder to teach by negative example, though. Those disbelieving stares from students...

We are practically kindred souls in terms of agreement on the issue. Yellow journalism and misleading headlines in paricular irk me even more than the misuse of tense, etc. Your assssment is SPOT ON!

[chevykanteve]

Their English is bad, but their arithmetic is even worse.

They just cannot seem to get their collective heads around numbers,

and make some idiotic conversions for Baht to other currencies.

Naka.

Yeah... Here's another example: One paper says there were 800 demonstrators and the other says 3,000. Then the numbers change again, respectively, as each day passes.

[orchis]

It's just terrible, I switched to the IHT,

today another article about Thailand on the front page

[soundman]

I talk to my daughter in english. She answers in thai. The middle ground where we both don't really have a grasp of language is called tinglish!!

Soundman.

[Stephen Cleary]

Yes, there have been cuts at The Nation.

I too, had to accept a pay-decrease.

[jEFFREYk44]

I'm still trying to figure out why suspects agree to public crime re-enactments without a trial first or even talking to a lawyer first. Sorry, off topic.

OK, off topic but the videos are "video confessions" for court purposes, just Thai style evidence that cannot be refuted later when the case comes to court about 1 1/2 years later

[polecat]

I don't think the problem is so much a lack of native speaking employees as much as office politics and, er, suspect line management. The stories are written in (often pretty ropey) English and then handed to the native speaking subs. The subs generally get next to no time to edit the copy, but beware the farang who complains about poor timekeeping. Also beware the farang who questions facts or style.

Allegedly

Edited March 29, 2007 by polecat

[A_Traveller]

My recent favourite from the Bangkok Post was the web version of the story relating to the train incident the other day where the train and booking office 'colluded'. The mental image viz Thomas the Tank engine was at the very least bizarre. Further in the same article was the use of 'wounded' as opposed to 'injured'.

Regards

PS Link {from RSS} which should still work:-

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=117727