Thai Translation

What to consider when translating from English into Thai

• The Thai script is standard; it can be read and understood by audiences in all regions of Thailand alike.
• There is no space to differentiate each Thai word, a single word can be one or more syllable.
• Vowels/tone marks placement should be adjacent to a Thai consonant, or top/bottom placement.
• There is no specific end of line (.) or end of phrase (,) that applies to Thai. The indicator observed is a single space to differentiate between individual phrases or sentence. But commonly we do see applications of comma, semi-colon and colons, as well as Exclamation marks/Question marks. (depending on customer’s requirement and preference/translation style guide)
• Capitalization rules do not apply in Thai.
• Font formats apply same as source (bold, italics, underline)
• Transliteration also applies
• Grammar/parts of speech applies
• Noun has no gender + no subject-verb agreement + no verb tense (use adverb of time)
• Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.
• Official standards for translation/transcription: the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), published by the Royal Institute of Thailand, that applies and recommended to follow
• The 24hr clock applies as official standard. For example, 2PM = 14.00 น. Thailand also uses a Thai 6 hour clock system.
• Thai has specific characters to denote numbers, e.g. ๑ ๒ ๓ ๔ ๕ = 1 2 3 4 5. Both Arabic and Thai digits for numeric values are used. Thai numerals can be found in government documentation while Arabic numerals are widely used in general documentation.
• Thai year (Buddhist Era/B.E.) also applies, e.g. B.E. 2559 = A.D. 2016

Common issues in translation

• Word/line breaks issues due to no space between words. The word or phrase at the end of row may be incorrectly broken if the translator or editor has no prior knowledge of Thai language.
• Incorrect vowel display/overlapping, misaligned tone marks
• Supported fonts: commonly Tahoma, CordiaNew or AngsanaNew
• Different font format also applies (same as source English)
• Left-align formatting is commonly used. Forced justified is not recommended
• There is no automated or simple way to obtain exact Thai wordcount, most accurate is manual count. MSWord can also give a suitable wordcount.

What to be careful about when translating

• Content rearrangement is common in Thai translation. The word order is generally subject–verb–object. For example, this is a good book, translates as นี่เป็นหนังสือที่ดี (this is a book that is good) or หนังสือเล่มนี้ดี (this book is good). Word by word translation is commonly not preferred, except specifically required or for short texts.
• For translation with length restriction, it is important to note whether total character count also include tone marks.
• Different registers apply, e.g. street/spoken, religious, or Royal, so translation should carefully consider this for word and style usage.