Translation into Thai needs special knowledge about this Asian
language:
1. Thai never uses full stop at the end of a sentence.
2. Then, CAT segmentation rule is different
from those of European languages.
3. Thai has no capital letter set. Emphasizing of words can be with
underlines, quotation mark, or font formats.
4. For Trados and many computer aided
translation (CAT) tools, Thai characters can be garble after translation. This
occurs even with the latest version of CAT tools. Manual adjustment is
required.
5. Thai DTP needs special hardware (dongle, card etc.) to display and
print in each version of software and on each Windows or Mac OS system. This
applies to Adobe Indesign, Adobe Pagemaker,
Adobe Frame Maker, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator etc.
6. Technical/academic Thai is not much
standardized. Many translators use their own styles even
they are university gradates. The Royal Academy of Thailand has sets of
technical Thai terms but the number is not much. Technical terms in certain
doctrines are not set yet e.g. biotechnology.
7. Word counts for Thai needs special Thai-compatible PC or Mac. Counting
in a European PC will give you less Thai word counts:
Many words are realized as one word since Thai never
use spaces among words!
Thai localization guide
An
abridged version from http://translation.com
Thai,
a single-byte language with a unique script, contains 44 consonants (a few are
considered obsolete), 33 vowels, 4 tone marks (there are 5 tones), and 5 other symbols with a diacritical or punctuation function.
There are Thai numerals but roman numerals are increasingly common, especially
in technical publications. English words are used liberally in Thai (more so
than for say, Japanese), but English words can also be transliterated to Thai
script. Phonetic transliterations are not standardized and may not be able to
reflect a sound that closely resembles the normal English pronunciation of a
word.
Thai
is part of a group of languages with a similar script known as the Mon-Khmer
languages. The other languages (Burmese, Lao, Khmer, and ethnic variations) are rarely localized, so in practice Thai
localization faces unique issues. Unfortunately, there
is an impression in the localization industry that only the double-byte
languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and perhaps Arabic are particularly
difficult, and that Thai is like an
"ordinary" single-byte language except for some problems with getting
the line breaks right. However, companies such as Microsoft agree that Thai is
perhaps the most troublesome language to localize into, and this document will
perhaps shed some light as to why.
Method
of Translation Issues
Descriptive translation as per dictionary Terms
may be too long
Terms
may not correspond to those actually used by professionals in the industry
Shortened or shorter descriptive translation Terms
may be ambiguous
Terms
may not correspond to those actually used by professionals in the industry
Transliteration into Thai More
than one transliteration is possible (e.g.
"drive" and "software" are transliterated
in different ways)
The
closest Thai phonetic equivalent may be very different from the English
word
The
transliteration may not be easily recognized nor understood
Thai descriptive translation (usually
shortened if necessary) followed the English term in parentheses every time This is the
"traditional" approach. The Thai term may not be clear, so the English
word given for those who may understand it.
May
cause massive growth of the translation
If
a term occurs frequently, it becomes absurdly repetitive to
also have the
English version every time
For certain fields
with many "new" or technical terms, such as computers,
this approach is impossible for the reasons outlined above.
Causes horrible typography if used frequently: the "chocolate
chip cookie"
effect.
Leave the word in English May
sometimes be wisest choice, but:
Obviously
if the translation is for general use, some people won't
understand
it.
The
company ordering the translation may be upset that many words have not been translated.
Some Thais may not be able to pronounce the
words.
Documents
submitted to the government or the civil service will not be
accepted without full translations and even the co-existence of English
words with Thai may not be approved.
Causes horrible typography if used frequently: the "chocolate
chip cookie" effect.
English with Thai translation in parentheses
for the first instance of a term per chapter/section Not a common approach, but quite practical
Some
drawbacks as for "English Only" listed above
Obviously other variations of the possibilities listed above
are also possible. If not specified beforehand to a translator, there is almost
no end of possible methods the translator may use.
Currently,
companies such as Microsoft and Hewlett Packard use different terms for such
common computer terms as "error", "file", and
"drive". Many terms used by large IT companies
seem dubious, if not just plain incorrect. Almost any
Thai localization project will run into glossary standardization problems and
the following issues typically arise as a direct result of glossary-related
problems:
It
can be difficult to come up with glossary solutions than can satisfy the needs
of all the intended groups of end-users.
More
time should be allowed to create a Thai glossary than
for other languages, since there are few available resources to leverage.
The
source of the glossary needs to be checked carefully
as even large companies have developed poor Thai language glossaries.
As
much help, input, and co-operation should
be sought from the company ordering the translation as is reasonably
possible.
Client
or independent reviewers may attempt to revise 30% or more terms in a glossary.
Client companies need to understand why this is so, and that it does not
necessarily mean that the original terms were wrong.
