Help: Thai > English translation-related questions

May_L wrote:

You are talking about two different things here: To go and live down there, and to do the translation. Which one do you prefer? Come on! This is a cyber world. The translation work is portable and I see no relation with going to the country where people speak the language-unless you want to learn more about their culture and make a good asset for your translation work.

[-How hard is it to learn Thai up to a level where one could successfully translate? Would you imagine it to be much harder for a native English speaker to learn than a romance language such as Spanish? If I learned Spanish well enough to translate from it in a year of living in Spanish-speaking countries (and formally studying the language through much of it), could I do the same with Thai?]
Are you kidding? Translation is not only a matter of language. It also includes knowledge in culture which is dynamic and takes years to learn, and the materials you will be working on and et cetera.

Michael Sloggett wrote:

If you are a dedicated student, can you learn to speak and read everyday Thai in a year? Yes. If you are talented you might do it in six months. However, what you are unlikely to achieve in one year includes:

1) reading Thai handwriting (a common requirement in translating official documents)
2) understanding Thai "official speak" and "reporter speak"
3) an understanding of the structure of Thai bureaucracy and bureaucratic processes (from which many common documents for translation emanate)
4) a proper appreciation of register, tone and nuance of language (obviously crucial for translating any language)
5) sufficient depth of experience to correctly interpret sentences for which a dictionary provides little assistance (and you will come across many)
6) sufficient cultural awareness (remember that this is a culture built on quite different bases to any of those you have encountered)
7) any specialist knowledge (which might help you earn more)

That said, I certainly encourage you to learn the language and, if you like, prove me wrong.

On your particular questions:

* I find that there is money to be made in Thai->English translation/interpreting. Where and how is something you will have to establish for yourself. Everyone's approach is different. It's not true that Thai local rates set the standard for the field in general.
* Yes, I think that the learning curve for a native English speaker learning Thai is steeper than for the same person learning a romance language. There is very little in common between Thai and English, and between (traditional) Thai and Western cultures.

Good luck.


[Edited at 2010-02-13 23:57 GMT]

Melanie Meyer wrote:

Hi David,

I lived in Bangkok for 3 years and learned to speak conversational Thai within 2 - 4 months. There's an excellent Thai language school in Thanon Suriwong downtown Bangkok. Many missionaries attend it to get a working knowledge of the Thai language within a short amount of time. School hours are from 8 am to noon, but you have to back it up with about 1 to 3 hours of homework and studying daily to keep up with the pace. The first 2 months, they only teach you the spoken language and use an English transcription system for writing. Starting in month 3 you learn the Thai alphabet (which has roughly 76 characters). By month 5 you can read and write basic essays in Thai. I only attended until month 5, but I know that they offered more advanced classes as well.

Good luck!

Melanie

Michele Fauble wrote:

Based on its experience in teaching languages, the US Foreign Service Institute has developed a scale of language learning difficulty for native English speakers. Spanish is in group I and Thai is in group II. A group II language takes about twice as long to learn to level 3 (Professional Working proficiency) as a group I language.

There is also a British Foreign Office Diplomatic Service Language Centre list. This list has five classes from the most difficult (Class 1) to the easiest (Class V), with Spanish in class V and Thai in class II.