Thai Language Wordpress For An English Speaker

[JuniorExPat]

Excuse me being a little lazy - I did make a quick search of the forum but came up with very little.

I'm preparing to make a site using WordPress and I thought that it would be sensible to include the wisdom of ThaiVisa in those preparations.

I do not read or write Thai very well and the site it going to be in Thai! I will be building and administrating the site as well as creating the content in English. I have someone lined up to translate the content and someone else to proofread the site.

If you have any experience of this scenario or can foresee any pitfalls or, better still, shortcuts I would be very grateful for a heads-up. This will be my first attempt at publishing in Thai so I have no idea if it will be plain sailing or if I should expect a steep learning curve.

Aforementioned gratitude may be shown in terms of beer if you happen to be in or visiting Chiang Mai

Thanks in advance,

JxP.

[Veazer]

I'm in a similar situation. I'm about to do a Drupal based site entirely in Burmese script and I can't read any Burmese either.

My plans are to do as much as possible in english and then swap the language files towards the end. I'm hoping the owner will let me keep the admin side in english, but i need to confirm this.

I've noticed that some translations for various CMS apps are incomplete, so you might want to download Thai language files for other blog-based CMS systems similar to Wordpress and see if they fill in the gaps. Then again, if you've got a translator you might not need it.

You're going to do all the CSS and commenting in thai for future thai web masters, right? Joking....

Anyway, if I find any handy shortcuts I'll pass them your way. Regarding the beer, I'm in Chiang Mai as well but I haven't even earned a sip of Chang yet.

Good luck to you.

Regards,

Veazer

[Norrad]

There are quite a few plugin for wordpress that handle translations. Have a look at Translation and multilingual wordpress plugins, but I haven't personally tried any of them out.

[Simmo]

One thing from my experience that will cause you a lot of headaches is word wrapping in Firefox as Thai doesnt have spaces. Firefox will expand table cells to fit the content even when you specify fixed width cells - destroying your typical 2 or 3 column site layout.. If you use css for your layout it's a bit easier but still some headaches.

I think this is why a lot of Thai sites - even major ones - only look correct in IE.

[Veazer]

One thing from my experience that will cause you a lot of headaches is word wrapping in Firefox as Thai doesnt have spaces. Firefox will expand table cells to fit the content even when you specify fixed width cells - destroying your typical 2 or 3 column site layout.. If you use css for your layout it's a bit easier but still some headaches.

I think this is why a lot of Thai sites - even major ones - only look correct in IE.

What do you think about putting a link to this Firefox plugin here on Thai websites? Asking Firefox users to download an extension is not a perfect solution, but it helps the browser work better with most Thai sites.

[JuniorExPat]

One thing from my experience that will cause you a lot of headaches is word wrapping in Firefox as Thai doesnt have spaces. Firefox will expand table cells to fit the content even when you specify fixed width cells - destroying your typical 2 or 3 column site layout.. If you use css for your layout it's a bit easier but still some headaches.

I think this is why a lot of Thai sites - even major ones - only look correct in IE.

What do you think about putting a link to this Firefox plugin here on Thai websites? Asking Firefox users to download an extension is not a perfect solution, but it helps the browser work better with most Thai sites.

Yup - I have the IE plugin - it's the only way I can use the Pizza Company website! An IE tabbed window automatically pops up when I go to the site.

JxP

[JuniorExPat]

I'm in a similar situation. I'm about to do a Drupal based site entirely in Burmese script and I can't read any Burmese either.

My plans are to do as much as possible in english and then swap the language files towards the end. I'm hoping the owner will let me keep the admin side in english, but i need to confirm this.

I've noticed that some translations for various CMS apps are incomplete, so you might want to download Thai language files for other blog-based CMS systems similar to Wordpress and see if they fill in the gaps. Then again, if you've got a translator you might not need it.

You're going to do all the CSS and commenting in thai for future thai web masters, right? Joking....

Anyway, if I find any handy shortcuts I'll pass them your way. Regarding the beer, I'm in Chiang Mai as well but I haven't even earned a sip of Chang yet.

Good luck to you.

Regards,

Veazer

Thanks Veazer - plenty to think about there.

I guess I was kind of hoping that I could cut and paste the Thai text into my English language Wordpress admin interface! I'll have some translations next week so I will begin the experimenting process.

Haven't seen you in the Chiang Mai forum . . . ?

JxP

PS: sipping Chang in not advised, if you must drink the stuff (and I have been known to) then lots of ice and great big gulps are the order of the day!

[JuniorExPat]

There are quite a few plugin for wordpress that handle translations. Have a look at Translation and multilingual wordpress plugins, but I haven't personally tried any of them out.

Thanks Norrad - I'll keep that bookmarked.

JxP

[frenchfarangjomtien]

Hi,

Do you know any Drupal coder to code/adapt modules in Bangkok or anywhere in Thailand ?

thanks.

[carib102]

Are you going to have the site in both Thai and English similar to what my wife has done here?

You can use qTranslate to be able to simply copy/paste the Thai into the WP admin.

Hope that helps.