Thai To English Translator (please Advice)

[70hn]

Hi all,

I'm new in this group and currently need to translate some email/conversation from Thai to English.

Could anybody advice me a good translator with reasonable price, please?

Thanks.

John.

[littlekop]

Yes, I can be a translator if you want. You can contact me by posting in this forum or send me private messages.

Thank you,

[mangkorn]

Yes, I can be a translator if you want. You can contact me by posting in this forum or send me private messages.

Thank you,

I would humbly suggest that littlekop participate a littlebit in these discussions, to lend his/her experience as a teacher and native speaker to those of us who devote a lot of time and energy - and a lot of years - to working out his/her language. A littlesolidarity, please? We're trying to be good citizens, and to immerse ourselves fully in the culture.

The continuing string of classified adverts is okay, I suppose, but how about a littlebit of useful contribution to the greater good, as well? No doubt that would be greatly appreciated by the rest of the members.

Or is that completely unreasonable? Won't work for free?

Those advertisements are certainly free of charge, last time I checked.

There is something in the tenets of Buddhism about sharing with others.

หลัà¸à¸˜à¸£à¸£à¸¡à¸›à¸£à¸°à¸žà¸¤à¸•à¸´

I'm just saying...this isn't really meant to be a fishing pond.

Thank you.

[CalicoConsulting]

Hi all,

I'm new in this group and currently need to translate some email/conversation from Thai to English.

Could anybody advice me a good translator with reasonable price, please?

Thanks.

John.

Hi John,

Contact Ratanawadee at [email protected] She's just off Chang Phuak Road at a place called Drink Club which I've never been to and probably couldn't find with both hands and a flashlight. One of my Thai workers jumped on his motorcycle and found her for me. She answers email! And sends it! And works quickly! I've only used her to translate English to Thai, which I don't read, but my Australian customers have been much impressed. 1/5 the price of my neighbors at the YMCA and much faster service. And yes, you caught me. I sell her translations from English to Thai for a tidy sum overseas. I am evil.

Best regards,

Michael

[mangkorn]

Hi all,

I'm new in this group and currently need to translate some email/conversation from Thai to English.

Could anybody advice me a good translator with reasonable price, please?

Thanks.

John.

Hi John,

Contact Ratanawadee at [email protected] She's just off Chang Phuak Road at a place called Drink Club which I've never been to and probably couldn't find with both hands and a flashlight. One of my Thai workers jumped on his motorcycle and found her for me. She answers email! And sends it! And works quickly! I've only used her to translate English to Thai, which I don't read, but my Australian customers have been much impressed. 1/5 the price of my neighbors at the YMCA and much faster service. And yes, you caught me. I sell her translations from English to Thai for a tidy sum overseas. I am evil.

Best regards,

Michael

Dear Evil One:

Nah - you're just doing business: buying her services; and selling yours.

Unless, of course, you keep her locked up in a sweatshop 16 hours a day, and pay her in cold rice and water...

Hmm, you don't do that, now do ya?

Cheers.

[mangkorn]

Just in case I may have come across as too harsh re: littlekop, it would be instructive to check out the contributions made on this forum by khun yoot.

A couple hundred posts, and every one of them pure gold.

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout...

[Tilokarat]

You can cut and paste the e-mail message at, www.thai2english.com, and do the translation yourself. It might not be perfect, but you can pick up the main points fairly easily.

[mangkorn]

You can cut and paste the e-mail message at, www.thai2english.com, and do the translation yourself. It might not be perfect, but you can pick up the main points fairly easily.

I don't know, Tilokarat. Translation is an art, not a science. Good translation is poetry, truth be told. There are great poets, and lots of very shitty poets.

Translating single words, from even the best dictionary, will never give you the proper context that you need, certainly not for a full discourse, unless you are already quite fluent and learned in both the language and the subject at hand.

Likely as not, translating from a dictionary will lead one to make great errors.

Especially in an e-mail, which in the OP's case, is probably with a girlfriend.

Translation is not something to be trifle with.

Edited May 12, 2007 by mangkorn

[cali4995]

Yes littlekop, if you wanted to sell translation services it might actually be smart to demonstrate your skills? If you earn the trust and confidence of members it would probably be good for your business? Welcome, I didn't realize we had Thai members.

Edited May 12, 2007 by cali4995

[Tilokarat]

Yes Mangkorn, you make a very good point. I have been scolded, over the telephone, more than a few times for not 'getting' the message correctly. However, attempting to translate does help one to improve one's language skills simply by learning to recognise a number of words in Thai. I send all of my messages to her in Thai now, and much less harm is done than when I sent e-mails and letters in English. By the way, I do have a few years of Thai language training although that was back in the mid-1980s.

[mangkorn]

Yes Mangkorn, you make a very good point. I have been scolded, over the telephone, more than a few times for not 'getting' the message correctly. However, attempting to translate does help one to improve one's language skills simply by learning to recognise a number of words in Thai. I send all of my messages to her in Thai now, and much less harm is done than when I sent e-mails and letters in English. By the way, I do have a few years of Thai language training although that was back in the mid-1980s.

Khun Tilokarat: I do not have any reason to doubt your own skills. I didn't mean to suggest that, and am sorry if my meaning wasn't clear. I did doubt the skills of a word-by-word software program (athough I never tried the one that was mentioned). My point was, working word-by-word is very limiting, because that alone can't suss out the particular context or meaning.

As a perfect example, I just checked into the name for a Buddha image that Khun Yoot mentioned in another thread, (bpaang-haam-yaat), and broke it down into component parts; a dictionary search resulted in "almost," "forbid," "relatives." I don't see how that could make any sense to anyone, and possibly has nothing to do with the name for that particular Buddha image, at all.

But I totally agree with you: students should always try to translate, for good learning exercise. It is a never-ending task, and we must keep pushing on.

Cheers.

[Tilokarat]

Thanks for that. I had no problem with what you said at all. And I think it is easy to make mistakes. The thai2english.com provides a line by line paragraph translation, or word by word if you click on a particular word. I find it easier to write than read Thai through this free service.

In my of my translations I made the mistake of thinking that she was taking a course in dog training to upgrade her skills and failure on her part would result in her having to do some work in Laos. In fact, as she pointed out later, she was talking about her son's struggles to pass his entrance examination to a school in Udon Thani. There were some references to Laos and dog training in the e-mail, but my translation, obviously, was poorly done. My written letters fare much better and the scoldings are less severe; however, one must be careful to use correct and polite language as both of us have discovered to my chagrin.

[meadish_sweetball]

I've recommended thai2english.com several times and will do it again. Indispensible online resource. Mangkorn, try opening a newspaper article from any online Thai daily in the thai2english.com interface, and you will see what I mean.

The beauty is that the program, unlike babelfish and other machine translation services, does not attempt to make a complete translation - instead it gives you several suggestions for each component part (word or short phrase), which means you can make your own deductions and attempt to translate the text into something comprehensible. The better your grasp of Thai is, the greater your chance is of making good sense of it.

It saves you a lot of time flicking through dictionaries, and also has a good phonetic script rendering mechanism - you can even choose between a number of different transcriptions.

And what is even better, it is a free site with no ads.

[meadish_sweetball]

I've recommended thai2english.com several times and will do it again. Indispensible online resource. Mangkorn, try opening a newspaper article from any online Thai daily in the thai2english.com interface, and you will see what I mean.

The beauty is that the program, unlike babelfish and other machine translation services, does not attempt to make a complete translation - instead it gives you several suggestions for each component part (word or short phrase), which means you can make your own deductions and attempt to translate the text into something comprehensible. The better your grasp of Thai is, the greater your chance is of making good sense of it.

It saves you a lot of time flicking through dictionaries, and also has a good phonetic script rendering mechanism - you can even choose between a number of different transcriptions.

And what is even better, it is a free site with no ads.

[mangkorn]

I've recommended thai2english.com several times and will do it again. Indispensible online resource. Mangkorn, try opening a newspaper article from any online Thai daily in the thai2english.com interface, and you will see what I mean.

The beauty is that the program, unlike babelfish and other machine translation services, does not attempt to make a complete translation - instead it gives you several suggestions for each component part (word or short phrase), which means you can make your own deductions and attempt to translate the text into something comprehensible. The better your grasp of Thai is, the greater your chance is of making good sense of it.

It saves you a lot of time flicking through dictionaries, and also has a good phonetic script rendering mechanism - you can even choose between a number of different transcriptions.

And what is even better, it is a free site with no ads.

On that recommendation, I shall definitely check into it. Sounds good.

Cheers.

[wolfmanjack]

Yes Mangkorn, you make a very good point. I have been scolded, over the telephone, more than a few times for not 'getting' the message correctly. However, attempting to translate does help one to improve one's language skills simply by learning to recognise a number of words in Thai. I send all of my messages to her in Thai now, and much less harm is done than when I sent e-mails and letters in English. By the way, I do have a few years of Thai language training although that was back in the mid-1980s.

Khun Tilokarat: I do not have any reason to doubt your own skills. I didn't mean to suggest that, and am sorry if my meaning wasn't clear. I did doubt the skills of a word-by-word software program (athough I never tried the one that was mentioned). My point was, working word-by-word is very limiting, because that alone can't suss out the particular context or meaning.

As a perfect example, I just checked into the name for a Buddha image that Khun Yoot mentioned in another thread, (bpaang-haam-yaat), and broke it down into component parts; a dictionary search resulted in "almost," "forbid," "relatives." I don't see how that could make any sense to anyone, and possibly has nothing to do with the name for that particular Buddha image, at all.

But I totally agree with you: students should always try to translate, for good learning exercise. It is a never-ending task, and we must keep pushing on.

Cheers.

It could help if you have a book on buddha mutras or know something about what is being discussed. I would guess that the buddha you are referring to is "stop the relatives from fighting".