Phuket Thailand

NorwegianViking · #1 08-01-2007, 21:44

Hello everybody

I live in Denmark, but have a special interest in Thailand because of my job, as Chief Technical Officer of a company offering SMS translation from English to Thai (and also several other languages too).

I'm male, 46 and married, living in beautiful surroundings in north of Denmark.
In spite of a demanding family situation (having twins at the age of 2,5 years) I hope to get the opportunity to visit Thailand in the not-so-far-future, as we have an office in Phuket, and some business partners in Bangkok.

The Thai language sure is a challenging language to do translation to, and to transliterate. Representation of tones for one thing, we chose to go with the Royal Thai standard, omitting the tones. Do all Thais read and understand transliterated Thai? (I believe this is called Karaoke-Thai?)

So far we have transliteration to English, but will try to get transliteration into other languages to (French, german, Italian). Anyone knows a good reference for this?

kind regards
Øyvind Strøm

MrDK · #2 08-01-2007, 22:26

Øyvind,
Welcome to the board.
With an office in Phuket and being in the business of translating to and from Thai, hopefully you will find many excuses for visiting LOS.

palaceboy · #3 09-01-2007, 00:09

Welcome Øjvind, it's nice to see more Scandinavians on the board.

Jørn

NorwegianViking · #4 10-01-2007, 02:17

Thanks for the welcome, guys.

georgelondon · #5 10-01-2007, 02:28

welcome to the board Øyvind Strøm.

cybernator_uk · #6 10-01-2007, 04:47

Hello and welcome to the board...

me4u · #7 10-01-2007, 13:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorwegianViking

Hello everybody

I live in Denmark, but have a special interest in Thailand because of my job, as Chief Technical Officer of a company offering SMS translation from English to Thai (and also several other languages too).

I'm male, 46 and married, living in beautiful surroundings in north of Denmark.
In spite of a demanding family situation (having twins at the age of 2,5 years) I hope to get the opportunity to visit Thailand in the not-so-far-future, as we have an office in Phuket, and some business partners in Bangkok.

The Thai language sure is a challenging language to do translation to, and to transliterate. Representation of tones for one thing, we chose to go with the Royal Thai standard, omitting the tones. Do all Thais read and understand transliterated Thai? (I believe this is called Karaoke-Thai?)

So far we have transliteration to English, but will try to get transliteration into other languages to (French, german, Italian). Anyone knows a good reference for this?

kind regards
Øyvind Strøm

Welcome on board! When I've chatted Thai's on the net, and I've used kareoke, but a lot seem to complain that they don't understand everything. Though I don't think you can go wrong using the Royal Thai standard. BTW there are many different transliterations knocking around, another fairly popular one is the Mary haas system, you could try looking into that.
Here are just a few examples.......................................... ......

khun chuu aray khrap
kun choo arai krap
kun chue arai kap

You can see the differences above of various systems of transliteration.
When I wrote a book Thai / English I was told by the publisher that I had to re-write it using their transliteration standard, so it would match their other Thai/English publications,. This annoyed me a little because I was using the Mary Haaas system, which I consider to be superior!
Anyway good luck, and have a good time in Thailand.

NorwegianViking · #8 10-01-2007, 20:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by me4u

Welcome on board! When I've chatted Thai's on the net, and I've used kareoke, but a lot seem to complain that they don't understand everything. Though I don't think you can go wrong using the Royal Thai standard. BTW there are many different transliterations knocking around, another fairly popular one is the Mary haas system, you could try looking into that.
Here are just a few examples.......................................... ......

khun chuu aray khrap
kun choo arai krap
kun chue arai kap

You can see the differences above of various systems of transliteration.
When I wrote a book Thai / English I was told by the publisher that I had to re-write it using their transliteration standard, so it would match their other Thai/English publications,. This annoyed me a little because I was using the Mary Haaas system, which I consider to be superior!
Anyway good luck, and have a good time in Thailand.

Thanks for the welcome, me4u (and others).

Great, really useful information. me4u.
Thai is not the only language where there are different transliteration systems, so I have thought about implementing different transliteration systems, and letting the user choose his/her preference.
Default; a thai-phone gets Thai script back, a non-thai phone gets transliteration back.
But a westerner with a Thai phone can override this with a switch (+t or -t).
Likewise, I could implement another switch for another translation system, or letting the user set it in his/hers preferences on a web-site.

I'll certainly have a look at the Mary Haas system.
One question, will that form be understood by Thais if you show the display to them?
(We have designed the system so you can send the translation to another phone, but it may be that the other person doesn't have a phone.)

Thanks for your help.

kind regards
Øyvind

Petter · #9 10-01-2007, 20:55

Hei,i would put those questions in the general forum.
Not al read the Newbies area

Norwegian Viking in Denmark

NorwegianViking · #10 11-01-2007, 04:39

Oh.
Good advise. Thanks, Petter.

slinggalin · #11 11-01-2007, 19:45

Welcome to the boad NV. Hope you find it enjoyable when planning yer trip o Thailand in the near future

ATMwalking · #12 11-01-2007, 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorwegianViking

offering SMS translation from English to Thai (and also several other languages too).

Darn, I like doing my own creative translations for the girls. Even more fun punching in my own flavoured response for them

You should develop some shortcuts like:

NMFWB - Need money for water buffalo
PIHNM - Papa in hospital. need money.

Your business will do well and welcome to the board.

Captain · #13 11-01-2007, 22:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by ATMwalking

PIHNM - Papa in hospital. need money.

Not possible, as mostly papa ran away. More prob MIHNM

NorwegianViking · #14 12-01-2007, 02:47

Seems like we're gonna get a high hit rate in the translation cache, if all TGF's use the same story.

Might be most useful for Thai to English translation though. (Which are in test now, and we get in a few months time.)

Øyvind

viper · #15 12-01-2007, 03:13

Welcome NV, need any staff?