Thai Subtitles

[basjke]

I live for a while in thailand but aren't able to read or write thai.When I'm watching a movie at home with some thai partner I always need to enable thai subtitles so that they are supposed to understand whats going on.However I notice they react different as me to the scenes in the movie.First you can think that thai's have another sense of humor or feelings as us farangs.But at a closer look I can see that when an actor has a sentence of let say 10 words it is often translated in thai as only 2 or 3 words or sometimes even just 1 very long word.Does this mean those translations are just poor quality or is this normal.When you,farangs who can read thai,watch such a movie do the thai subtitles tell the same as the english actor is saying?

[besth]

I live for a while in thailand but aren't able to read or write thai.When I'm watching a movie at home with some thai partner I always need to enable thai subtitles so that they are supposed to understand whats going on.However I notice they react different as me to the scenes in the movie.First you can think that thai's have another sense of humor or feelings as us farangs.But at a closer look I can see that when an actor has a sentence of let say 10 words it is often translated in thai as only 2 or 3 words or sometimes even just 1 very long word.Does this mean those translations are just poor quality or is this normal.When you,farangs who can read thai,watch such a movie do the thai subtitles tell the same as the english actor is saying?

All of the above

My Thai reading speed is too slow to follow up subtitles in movies, but it is enough to have noticed poor translations and "poetic licenses" which get the message accross, but do not reflect what the movie really says.

What you say is "1 very long word", usually is a full sentence, not necessarily accurate.

Culture also plays a role. Different sense of humor and different reactions to the same images and words.

Maybe someone else has also noticed how this same thing happens with English subtitles on Thai movies and other Asian movies.

[BambinA]

I can see that when an actor has a sentence of let say 10 words it is often translated in thai as only 2 or 3 words or sometimes even just 1 very long word.Does this mean those translations are just poor quality or is this normal

coz

1 It has limit time (scene-by-scene), hence the thai subtitle has to make it fit with that scene.

2 Some English's sentences when we translate in Th , its just some words

do the thai subtitles tell the same as the english actor is saying?

80% yes..Anyway Th subtitle escapes to use rude words follow the rule.

example - in original sound = You're a Biatch.

in TH can be - e ta neaw

[bkkmick]

I love them. Been reading Thai (a bit) for a couple of years now and when you can hear what is being said and then read the sub-titles below it really helps the learning process.

Bit weird when the actor says "No" and the Thai sub-title below says "Yes" as Thai people answer negative questions positively as in Q. You don't like beer? A. Yes (..I don't like beer).

[guardian]

Another possible reason for their reactions to scenes being different from you is probably that the subtitles appear well before the corresponding words are spoken

Also, Thai sentences do not have spaces between words like in English, so you are seeing only 2 or 3 words instead of the 10 words?

[sonnyJ]

There's a big difference between pirated movies and the legal ones, which you get from the rental shops for example. The latter being usually good quality on subs. Previous often completely wrong in both english and thai, occasionally hilarious though.

That leads to question why so few foreign movies are translated in Thailand. Guess them are simply not popular.

[In the Rai!]

As a previous poster just said, the later released movies (new box office hits) are very funny indead. When translating they must use a translating machine to change it from English to Thai. These machine only ever translate the literal meaning and not slang.

example If an actor said in a restaurant "I am not happy with this service" the subtitle would read "Inothappyservicethis restaurant" as you all know the word for happy is sanuk so the Thai translation is "Chan mai sanuk borigarn kong ranaharn" which of course is not correct but very funny.

In The Rai!

[a2396]

Yes, I have noticed the same problem. I think there can be considerable problem in making accurate translations between Thai and English in verbal conversation as well. I really don't know anyone who does a good job with this. Who knows what level of expertise they have doing movie title translations. I think the dubbed in Thai voices are even more ridiculous and fake sounding. The movie loses the whole impact oftentimes. Even my Thai lady, whose English is poor, prefers to listen to the origional soundtrack in English.

[sonnyJ]

Yes I prefer the original sountrack as well, as long it's in english, if not then I require subtitles to understand.

I think in most countries in the world movies are dubbed rather than subtitled. I know only of few scandinavian countries where there is no dubbing but everything on tv is subtitled to the local language. These are mostly gov channels. Therefore the gov supports the subtitling and we get good results.

It's great for english learning as well..

In Thailand, the new Hollywood movies get translated to thai subs and dubs. Them seem to work OK, I can base this on hear say only, but there really should be more effort by the government here to translate more movies. Ooh, I forgot, how many foreign movies do they show on tv local channels per month. Maybe one?

[basjke]

Thanks all for your reply I have now a better understanding of why those subtitles look so different comparing with the original soundtrack.

In contrast with sonnyJ I think in most if not all european country's everything is subtitled.Long long time ago there was a lot of dubbing in europe due to the fact that at that time many people couldn't read properly but with the education in these modern times thats a thing of the past.Probably this is also the reason why in asian country's there is still a lot of dubbing.

[jumbo]

The Thai also have a more childish humor than westerners.

I have been to several Thai movies with english subtitles , mostly in the cinema, and they always seem to laugh about zilch.....at least that's my opinion or maybe I'm just hard to please

J

[meadish_sweetball]

Thanks all for your reply I have now a better understanding of why those subtitles look so different comparing with the original soundtrack.

In contrast with sonnyJ I think in most if not all european country's everything is subtitled.Long long time ago there was a lot of dubbing in europe due to the fact that at that time many people couldn't read properly but with the education in these modern times thats a thing of the past.Probably this is also the reason why in asian country's there is still a lot of dubbing.

I have to admit I dont know what the situation is like 2006, but back in the 90s, all the German channels I got that showed English language programming, had dubbed it into German. Italy was the same.

Has it really changed that much in 10 years?

With the introduction of commercial TV channels in Sweden around 1990 (yeah, we were a bit Eastern block), the amount of dubbing actually increased with cartoons.

Back in the 1960s and 70s in Sweden, even the cartoons would often be in the original language with Swedish subs - parents would read the subs to their kids, or the kids would watch even without understanding the language, just because it was cartoons.

[samran]

Back in the 1960s and 70s in Sweden, even the cartoons would often be in the original language with Swedish subs - parents would read the subs to their kids, or the kids would watch even without understanding the language, just because it was cartoons.

Probably is the reason why most Swedes can speak more than passable English...

[qualtrough]

Some movies have definately been translated by machine as others have noted. Hilarious translations result. Sad for any Thai though because it will be difficult to follow what is going on when that happens.

I have also noticed that the subtitlers will often put in current local Thai references when translating humorous dialogue so that it clicks with Thais and is funny to them. The humor may be totally unrelated to the original in the soundtrack.

One thing that always surprises me is that even in movies with good subtitling the people very frequently get the numbers wrong. For example, if someone says, get me document 9167, the subtitle might read 9617, or worse. This seems to happen more often than not. Anybody else notice that?

Meadish. When I was a teenager in the late 60s and early 70s we lived in Germany. All the movies then were dubbed in German. I remember being very bummed sitting through Woodstock and only understanding about 25% (if that)of what was going on. I still haven't seen it in English! At that time some countries, such as Belgium and I believe Holland (and Sweden as you say) showed original soundtracks.

[samran]

Some movies have definately been translated by machine as others have noted. Hilarious translations result. Sad for any Thai though because it will be difficult to follow what is going on when that happens.

I have also noticed that the subtitlers will often put in current local Thai references when translating humorous dialogue so that it clicks with Thais and is funny to them. The humor may be totally unrelated to the original in the soundtrack.

One thing that always surprises me is that even in movies with good subtitling the people very frequently get the numbers wrong. For example, if someone says, get me document 9167, the subtitle might read 9617, or worse. This seems to happen more often than not. Anybody else notice that?

Meadish. When I was a teenager in the late 60s and early 70s we lived in Germany. All the movies then were dubbed in German. I remember being very bummed sitting through Woodstock and only understanding about 25% (if that)of what was going on. I still haven't seen it in English! At that time some countries, such as Belgium and I believe Holland (and Sweden as you say) showed original soundtracks.

I used to work with a girl who freelanced for UBC doing translations. She was responsible for translating episodes of the 'west wing'. She was very competent in English, but given that she did it as a side job: 1) She couldn't devote her full efforts to it and 2) it is difficult to translate washingtonian 'inside the beltway' jargon into Thai, so the results were always approximate, at best. Occasionally she used to ask me about the script (I am a huge fan of the show) but there is so much of the language relies on context it was never an easy task.

[lampard10]

I live for a while in thailand but aren't able to read or write thai.When I'm watching a movie at home with some thai partner I always need to enable thai subtitles so that they are supposed to understand whats going on.However I notice they react different as me to the scenes in the movie.First you can think that thai's have another sense of humor or feelings as us farangs.But at a closer look I can see that when an actor has a sentence of let say 10 words it is often translated in thai as only 2 or 3 words or sometimes even just 1 very long word.Does this mean those translations are just poor quality or is this normal.When you,farangs who can read thai,watch such a movie do the thai subtitles tell the same as the english actor is saying?

It is the same with all sub-titles in Thailand. They are sometimes not only shorter, but often absolutely nothing like the original.

The classic example for those of you who have it, is the closing stages of Troy.

The narrator says about the fall of Troy and says " and now it's the time of Archilles"

Translated to the sub-titles came out as, " And now it's time for a Guinness"

You must watch the scene all the way though however.

[PeterH]

I find that in general the quality of the Thai subtitles on cable TV and genuine DVDs is quite good except for the odd misunderstanding on the part of the translator. The quality of the Thai subtitles on counterfeit DVDs is terrible to the point of making it practically impossible to follow the movie from just reading the subtitles.

[meadish_sweetball]

I also find official subs into Thai are passable for the most part - I notice a huge difference between seeing movies with my wife at the cinema (where Thai subs are provided) and back home without subs. In the cinema, she gets 85-95% of a movie, without subs perhaps 40-50%, so easily loses interest.

Obviously, subs for pirate movies are a different matter. They would never pay to have a proper translation done - so in that respect, you also get what you pay for.

Translating a show like 'West Wing' is one of the harder jobs you could get in the translation business. The typical dialogue is performed at back-breaking speed with lots of jargon. I would guess many native English speakers have problems fully grasping what they are talking about.

Now try to condense that information into chunks of text that must be displayed on the screen a certain amount of time each in order for the average reader to process them.

Add to that often unrealistic deadlines.

All the titles, functions, administrative bodies... you can't just expect to find equivalents in Thailand, and your time and space is restricted. The only thing you can do is to simplify and condense.