ตัวอักษรไทยและตัวอักษรโรมัน

[nakriian]

ตัวอักษรไทยและตัวอักษรโรมัน

Just curious about printed materials that contain roman words mixed in with thai script. For example: ผมชื่อ Nathaniel (My name is Nathaniel).

When adding roman words to thai sentences, what is the normal practice as far as spacing is concerned. I realize there may not be a rule for this, but I am just curious. Which of the following 4 sentences is more likely to appear in print.

1) ผมชื่อ Nathaniel

2) ผมชื่อNathaniel

3) ผมชื่อnathaniel

4) ผมชื่อ nathaniel

I realize that a person should try to type the roman words transiliterally using thai script, but for the situations where you don't want to do that and you actually want to include a roman word in your thai sentence. What is the normal practice. Another words, tell me how you have seen it in a book or in the newspaper just so I have an idea of how it is normally done.

Edited January 4, 2008 by nakriian

[BambinA]

1) ผมชื่อ Nathaniel >> correctoooooooooo

as the name has to start from a capital

2) ผมชื่อNathaniel >need a space

3) ผมชื่อnathaniel > not a capital(N) and no space

4) ผมชื่อ nathaniel>has a space but it has no capital (N)

[Rikker]

Put a space on either side of the English word/phrase. Capitalize proper nouns as you would in English, otherwise lower case. I frequently see words capitalized that don't need to be, which I think is probably just a misunderstanding on the part of the Thai writer about capitalization rules in English.

Here's an example in the middle of a sentence:

ระบอบประชาธิปไตย ซี่งในภาษาอังกฤษเรียกว่า democracy นั้น คือระบอบการปกครองทีชาวกรีก่คิดขึ้นเป็นครั้งแรกในสมัยก่อนคริสตศักราช

"Democracy, known as 'democracy' in English, is a system of government first thought of by the Greeks in the pre-Christian era."

Sounds kind of silly translated, but you get the idea. The word 'democracy' comes in the middle of the clause, but it's bounded on either side by a space. I don't think there's any typical case where English and Thai run into each other.