Bulk Thai-English Translations

[beachyman]

I am looking to do translations for 50-100 pages from Thai to English. Some is legal type of documents, others are just layman’s documents in relation to property management.

I have used some translation services in the past but they are very expensive and, in my opinion, unnecessary for this type of work.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to PM me or post here.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

If accuracy is important you really should use a professional, and a bit of shopping around for competitive quotes on the whole batch at once should get the price down well below the usual B500 per page that I've seen quoted.

If not, then are you a native English speaker? Go to your local university and find a native Thai student with "reasonable" English skills to work with you, get the gist from them and you polish it up.

B100 per hour plus some meals would be more than fair IMO, most likely looking at about an hour per page.

But obviously only worthwhile if your own time isn't valuable. . .

[beachyman]

If accuracy is important you really should use a professional, and a bit of shopping around for competitive quotes on the whole batch at once should get the price down well below the usual B500 per page that I've seen quoted.

If not, then are you a native English speaker? Go to your local university and find a native Thai student with "reasonable" English skills to work with you, get the gist from them and you polish it up.

B100 per hour plus some meals would be more than fair IMO, most likely looking at about an hour per page.

But obviously only worthwhile if your own time isn't valuable. . .

Hmm obviously my time is more valuable than that but could try a college student on pay upon completion and compare it to three pages of professional translations. Think I have someone in mind. It is for myself so accurracy is not that important.

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[BigJohnnyBKK]

Hmm obviously my time is more valuable than that but could try a college student on pay upon completion and compare it to three pages of professional translations. Think I have someone in mind. It is for myself so accurracy is not that important.

It'll be a rare college student indeed - even completing a "Masters in Business English" that can produce even barely intelligible prose for this type of document, IMO to take this approach will require you to revise it with them present to clarify what they intended to communicate.

Only exceptions I've found are those that have studied - and ideally worked after graduation - in a native-English country.

[beachyman]

Hmm obviously my time is more valuable than that but could try a college student on pay upon completion and compare it to three pages of professional translations. Think I have someone in mind. It is for myself so accurracy is not that important.

It'll be a rare college student indeed - even completing a "Masters in Business English" that can produce even barely intelligible prose for this type of document, IMO to take this approach will require you to revise it with them present to clarify what they intended to communicate.

Only exceptions I've found are those that have studied - and ideally worked after graduation - in a native-English country.

True. I might end up doing a google translate/ self job for three hours.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

Hmm obviously my time is more valuable than that but could try a college student on pay upon completion and compare it to three pages of professional translations. Think I have someone in mind. It is for myself so accurracy is not that important.

It'll be a rare college student indeed - even completing a "Masters in Business English" that can produce even barely intelligible prose for this type of document, IMO to take this approach will require you to revise it with them present to clarify what they intended to communicate.

Only exceptions I've found are those that have studied - and ideally worked after graduation - in a native-English country.

True. I might end up doing a google translate/ self job for three hours.

I don't think they're quite there yet. I'm assuming that when you say accuracy isn't that important you mean the correspondence between the two versions, but that you do actually need to understand what the Thai original is saying.

Even if the uni student isn't competent to produce polished English output, they should be able to verbally communicate with you - interactively - to help you understand the details in the original, and you just take notes that you may or may not need to refine later.

When google totally mangles something you'll have no way of knowing.

[phuturatica]

Surely you could try and advertise for someone who has lived in a native English speaking country for a while to hire to help you? I know quite a few uni students who have very good English who have done some proof reading in the past.

[beachyman]

I received a referral from someone on TV. I will see if that pans out. The main thing is getting the gist of what they are communicating. Google translate usually works quite well for me in the past for non-slang and non-professional text. But the university student angle may work I simply don't want to waste my time sitting with someone for hours, then I would rather pay a nominal rate per page.