My bank wrote in Thai and I cannot read Thai

[sfguy]

My bank made a note in my account that I do not understand. I attached a screen shot of the Thai text hoping someone can tell me what it says.

Thank you in advance.

[jspill]

'siam paragon'

[sfguy]

Thanks, jspll

[CharlieH]

MOVED TO banking forum

[FritsSikkink]

MOVED TO banking forum

Don't have to move, is answered already.

[Xircal]

Google Translate does a pretty good job of translating Thai to English in case you get stuck again: https://translate.google.com/

[AnotherOneAmerican]

MOVED TO banking forum

Now it's in the banking forum, can you delete the Thai script as it's not allowed in this forum.

DOH!

[Tomtomtom69]

MOVED TO banking forum

Now it's in the banking forum, can you delete the Thai script as it's not allowed in this forum.

DOH!

I know you are joking, but to be honest it's pretty ridiculous, comical almost, that a forum in Thailand is not allowed to display the language of the land. Last time I checked English was NOT an official language in Thailand. Perhaps the use of English script should also be banned on this forum, lol.

[A1Str8]

Answer them in English. They cannot read English.

[sfokevin]

Seems like the best place for this would be the Thai Language forum

Edited December 21, 2014 by sfokevin

[FritsSikkink]

Google Translate does a pretty good job of translating Thai to English in case you get stuck again: https://translate.google.com/

Google translate is only good if you translate a word. Try a longer sentence and it becomes useless.

[DavidMavec]

Answer them in English. They cannot read English.

Are you Russian or something?

[Tomtomtom69]

Google Translate does a pretty good job of translating Thai to English in case you get stuck again: https://translate.google.com/

Google translate is only good if you translate a word. Try a longer sentence and it becomes useless.

Not exactly - it might get the grammar screwed up a bit but for the most part Google Translate helps you to understand the overall meaning of a sentence or phrase. It does however help to know at least a little about the language you are translating to, in order to make sense of obvious errors, including the inappropriate translation of homonyms (words that have multiple meanings depending on the context and are spelled the same and sound the same irrespective of context). This is a big one - English homonyms do NOT translate well to other languages. Google Translate is no good if you have absolutely no understanding of the language you are translating to. You better have at least some minor knowledge at least.

Case in point - let me give you an example of an English homonym, which does NOT exist in Thai. Equally, I will give you an example of a Thai homonym, which does not exist in English:

tire (US spelling), meaning the rubber that makes contact with the road/ground surrounding a wheel on a car, truck, motorcycle or aircraft and to tire (verb) meaning to be tired, or to cause exhaustion. In Thai there are two completely different words for these two homonyms - ยาง (yaang) and เปลี้ย (pliaa) respectively. Therefore, no confusion exists between the Thai words, but in English a lot of confusion may exist. I realize that in British English spelling, tyre and tire are homophones, because of their different spelling. But there are any number of other examples, where both British and US spelling are the same and words have multiple meanings thus are classified as homonyms.

In Thai - ประตู (door, gate) and ประตู (goal, as in football or other sports where goals are scored). In English - as just mentioned, it's door, gate or goal and no confusion exists. You don't say - hey, Arsenal just scored a door against Bayern Munich! Or Borussia Dortmund scored a gate against Koeln. But that's how it's said in Thai.

So a lot of problems can arise when using Google Translate or any other translation site often due to not knowing how to choose the correct translation for a homonym, depending on the particular context. This seems to be more of a problem with English to foreign language translations than the other way round. Why? Because English has a hell of a lot of homonyms, much more than Thai. I used to think this was the opposite due to the fact that Thai is a tonal language, but I was wrong. There is even a long running segment on FM 107 MET Radio in Bangkok about English homonyms, which usually feature words that have at least 3 different meanings depending on the context. If the segment were on Thai words where the same is true, it wouldn't be nearly as long running. Although there are plenty of Thai homophones (words that sound the same but have a different meaning, the difference there is the spelling varies and thus there is no confusion at least in a written context). Thai has fewer homonyms than English though. Of course there is also the issue of tones, where a word can sound the same (more or less) but due to a difference in pitch or tone, the meaning changes. In English this doesn't occur except for the purpose of emphasis, as in the rising tone at the end of a sentence, but in Thai the meaning of the word can change due to a difference in tone.

Personally, I have always struggled a lot more with understanding how to make sense of translating English homonyms to Thai or other languages than the tones and have often made the incorrect assumption that other languages use the exact same homonyms that English does. Most other westerners however, seem to struggle more with tones.

[FritsSikkink]

Google Translate does a pretty good job of translating Thai to English in case you get stuck again: https://translate.google.com/

Google translate is only good if you translate a word. Try a longer sentence and it becomes useless.

Not exactly - it might get the grammar screwed up a bit but for the most part Google Translate helps you to understand the overall meaning of a sentence or phrase. It does however help to know at least a little about the language you are translating to, in order to make sense of obvious errors, including the inappropriate translation of homonyms (words that have multiple meanings depending on the context and are spelled the same and sound the same irrespective of context). This is a big one - English homonyms do NOT translate well to other languages. Google Translate is no good if you have absolutely no understanding of the language you are translating to. You better have at least some minor knowledge at least.

Case in point - let me give you an example of an English homonym, which does NOT exist in Thai. Equally, I will give you an example of a Thai homonym, which does not exist in English:

tire (US spelling), meaning the rubber that makes contact with the road/ground surrounding a wheel on a car, truck, motorcycle or aircraft and to tire (verb) meaning to be tired, or to cause exhaustion. In Thai there are two completely different words for these two homonyms - ยาง (yaang) and เปลี้ย (pliaa) respectively. Therefore, no confusion exists between the Thai words, but in English a lot of confusion may exist. I realize that in British English spelling, tyre and tire are homophones, because of their different spelling. But there are any number of other examples, where both British and US spelling are the same and words have multiple meanings thus are classified as homonyms.

In Thai - ประตู (door, gate) and ประตู (goal, as in football or other sports where goals are scored). In English - as just mentioned, it's door, gate or goal and no confusion exists. You don't say - hey, Arsenal just scored a door against Bayern Munich! Or Borussia Dortmund scored a gate against Koeln. But that's how it's said in Thai.

So a lot of problems can arise when using Google Translate or any other translation site often due to not knowing how to choose the correct translation for a homonym, depending on the particular context. This seems to be more of a problem with English to foreign language translations than the other way round. Why? Because English has a hell of a lot of homonyms, much more than Thai. I used to think this was the opposite due to the fact that Thai is a tonal language, but I was wrong. There is even a long running segment on FM 107 MET Radio in Bangkok about English homonyms, which usually feature words that have at least 3 different meanings depending on the context. If the segment were on Thai words where the same is true, it wouldn't be nearly as long running. Although there are plenty of Thai homophones (words that sound the same but have a different meaning, the difference there is the spelling varies and thus there is no confusion at least in a written context). Thai has fewer homonyms than English though. Of course there is also the issue of tones, where a word can sound the same (more or less) but due to a difference in pitch or tone, the meaning changes. In English this doesn't occur except for the purpose of emphasis, as in the rising tone at the end of a sentence, but in Thai the meaning of the word can change due to a difference in tone.

Personally, I have always struggled a lot more with understanding how to make sense of translating English homonyms to Thai or other languages than the tones and have often made the incorrect assumption that other languages use the exact same homonyms that English does. Most other westerners however, seem to struggle more with tones.

I can read Thai. It doesn't only screw up the grammar, it translates a lot of words completely wrong. I only use it to click the button which reads it out loud for you.

This is a lot faster for me then reading the whole article. When i then look at the translation, it is a joke.