Average Number Of Thai Characters Per Word?

[rrose070]

Is there an average? As in, say you send something to a translator who charges per word. Not reading Thai, how would you know it was an accurate word count?

[kelvinj]

Count the number of words in the translation.

[Rikker]

Shouldn't you pay them based on the word count of the one you can read?

Would it not be a wise choice to give compensation to the translating party based upon the total number of words in the source document?

Seriously, though, "word" is actually a very vague concept, and probably more in Thai than in English, without spaces to serve as a default "word" separator. It could mean syllable, it could mean compound--but in this case they're probably counting words as liberally as they can. Or so I'd imagine. I'd say go by the English, and if it looks unnecessarily wordy, take it up with them.

Edited March 31, 2008 by Rikker

[meadish_sweetball]

The usual way of payment is by source text word count, generally in Microsoft Word. Different word counting applications will yield slightly different results, so come to an agreement with the translator beforehand which application should be used.

Translating from Thai presents a bit of a problem as there is no software (=no software I am aware of) that can properly define the number of words in a Thai source text. Hence, many translators will charge based on the target word count instead, or just provide estimates for individual jobs based on source text difficulty and length. If target text word counting is used, it's a good idea to remind the translator beforehand that you need the text to be as brief as possible without leaving anything out. This should help to reduce tendencies to add 'extra' words.

[mangkorn]

Count the number of words in the translation.

As one who has often worked as a translator, I must beg to disagree.

A translator should always charge by the source document, if for no other reason than that he/she would be penalized for composing a concise translation.

If, for example, you take a verbose, formal writing style (such as Spanish - or Thai, in many cases) and turn it into the more direct style of English, you will often end up with about half as many words to express the very same thing. In such case, the better the translation, the less money you would earn. Ridiculous. That could lead as well to an unscrupulous translator composing a needlessly wordy document, just to make a good fee. If I were hiring a translator, I certainly would not want that.

Put another way, the source document is what the translator must work with, and so that is what should be paid for. And the person who hires the translator should want to have the most clear and concise document in translation.

Cheers.

Edited March 31, 2008 by mangkorn

[mangkorn]

Seriously, though, "word" is actually a very vague concept, and probably more in Thai than in English, without spaces to serve as a default "word" separator. It could mean syllable, it could mean compound--but in this case they're probably counting words as liberally as they can.

The concept of "word count" in the West originally derived from printers' measures, or something like 6 picas, if I recall correctly. It was a weighted average, which is the only sensible way to define the general length of a "word" for such purposes, given their widely varying lengths. I believe most word-processing programs today follow that basic idea (slightly more than five keystrokes per word, which does include the spaces in between words), with some variations, as meadish suggested.

Of course, none of that may be relevant to Thai language...

Edited March 31, 2008 by mangkorn

[cophen]

In the world of telegraphy the word length problem (for charging purposes) is got round by counting a word as having 10 letters. If it has 11 letters it's two words.

[Richard W]

Translating from Thai presents a bit of a problem as there is no software (=no software I am aware of) that can properly define the number of words in a Thai source text.

Does this mean you are distinctly unhappy with the way MS Word counts? In the Thai edition of Office XP (i.e. Word 2002) the menu sequence แฟ้ม, คุณสมบัติ, สถิติ ( = file, properties, statistics) gives you a word count, but that little sequence itself counts as seven words - แฟ้ม, คุณ, สมบัติ, สถิต, สถิติ and the two commas! I presume this result is an unhappy consequence of how Word gets from line-breaking opportunities to a word count. It will happily break the line either side of the <comma, space> sequence. One would hope that this has been improved by now.

[Tod Daniels]

Needing to have a several paragraph document worded in English translated into Thai. I went to two offices near my apartment which offered this service.

I gave both the exact same directions. Translate this as briefly as possible without losing ANY context or meaning. The next day I picked up both translated documents. One was a single long paragraph. It was concise, well written, and had every point from the source document represented in the Thai translation.

The other was a rambling, overly wordy almost incoherent document nearly two pages long. I could barely make heads or tails out of; even being able to read most things in Thai.

Of course there was a great difference in price because of the size of the translated document. The bigger document commanding the higher price even though it was less true to the source document, to the translating service it ‘looked’ better and was therefore worth more.

I would side with 'mangkorn' on this. I feel the price should be determined from the source document. You could very easily end up with an unreadable novel just so it cost you more. I for one would certainly pay more even if the Thai translation was half as wordy as my original English document IF it was an accurate translation.

[meadish_sweetball]

A skilled translator will consider the intended reader(s) and the purpose of the text, and adapt his/her style to achieve the best possible effect. Translating into English or Swedish is fairly straight forward, since the norm is typically to produce a short and concise rendering of the source text; unless of course, the source text is literary and deliberately wordy. Then you will need to reflect that in some way.

Thai style norms are not the same.

Into Thai, the translator needs to strike a balance between being clear and concise, and using language at the appropriate level of style, which often means using an elaborate expression instead of a shorter one. If the document is too brief it may not have the desired effect on the target audience. I have worked with Thai translators and often try to restrain them from overdoing it, but trying the texts out on Thai readers, many readers will prefer a slightly more verbose text.

Since education levels vary so greatly, considering your audience is an extremely important consideration. If your target audience has a university education you can expect them to be more familiar with advanced Thai vocabulary than an audience with only three to six years of schooling.

Despite all that, I also agree it makes more sense to somehow base payment on the source. I believe Germans use lines of text instead of words, for example.

Translating from Thai presents a bit of a problem as there is no software (=no software I am aware of) that can properly define the number of words in a Thai source text.

Does this mean you are distinctly unhappy with the way MS Word counts? In the Thai edition of Office XP (i.e. Word 2002) the menu sequence แฟ้ม, คุณสมบัติ, สถิติ ( = file, properties, statistics) gives you a word count, but that little sequence itself counts as seven words - แฟ้ม, คุณ, สมบัติ, สถิต, สถิติ and the two commas! I presume this result is an unhappy consequence of how Word gets from line-breaking opportunities to a word count. It will happily break the line either side of the <comma, space> sequence. One would hope that this has been improved by now.

Yes, that is a good example of what I meant. I am not familiar with any newer versions. Used to have Word XP Thai on my other machine but have now switched to an English version.

[mangkorn]

tod-daniels: too right, sir. If they are charging for the translated document, then you are probably getting ripped off: there is no incentive to produce a concise translation, and every incentive for making it as verbose as possible.I don't know if all translation services here do it that way; if they do, then we're stuck. But, it ain't right.

meadish: agreed on your points about different styles, and levels of education. Many people in many cultures get all nervous when writing something "official" or officious, and they often go way overboard with the obsequiousness. In fact, I think people of less education are generally the ones who are most guilty of that, in all cultures. Good grief, the management staff in my building - of obviously limited education - post their notices to the tenants to inform us of the mundane matters of maintenance, and they use at least three times as many words as would be necessary for such simple little informational notes. Its maddening: oftentimes, one can't finish reading the whole darn flowery thing during a single elevator ride. They just blather on and on and on... (And that's exactly the way it is in Latin America, whence I hail.)

[riga]

I know of translation services in my country that qoute the prices by number of letters contained in the original document (without spaces).

But I have no idea on what they base their prices.

However even this method would be unexact when applied to Thai language because of all the "unwritten vowels"...

Basically I agree on the price based on the original document, but how you can check it?

[grtaylor]

When I needed to get all the paperwork officially translated from English to Thai for a PR application, they charged per page of the source document.

G

[mangkorn]

When I needed to get all the paperwork officially translated from English to Thai for a PR application, they charged per page of the source document.

G

Very good: if some places charge by the source document, then one should never agree to any service that charges by the length of the translated version.

But (to continue beating this theme to death), what constitutes a "page?"

Single-spaced or double-spaced; varying font sizes; line breaks between paragraphs or no line breaks - all those things determine how many words fit on a page.

It seems to me, following a standard for word-length is the most sensible way (or, in the manner in which Riga suggests).

To cophen: interesting note about the telegraphy standard. In typed copy, however, a word is generally considered to be far fewer characters (or bytes).