Thai-English Translations Online

For chatting online with a Thai person, people usually rely on online translators. We use a human to translate important documents such as the first story which adoptees tell about themselves in introducing themselves to biological parents and family, but for subsequent, ongoing chats in current times, human translation is usually not practical so we prefer to give tips on how to try to get the best results from online translations. (If a particular item is very important, then asking for a human translation may be appropriate, of course.)

Machine translations such as Google Translate have improved a lot over the years. However, there can still be some misunderstandings, some of which can cause problems. Therefore, it is important to double check things if there seems to be an issue.

You have two options:

1. You type in English and let them translate, or else
2. You first translate and then send them the Thai translation.

The main advantage of option 2 is that you have more control -- you can double check the translation and improve upon it if necessary, and can run much less risk of a misunderstanding. A disadvantage is that you take more responsibility for the translation, since you are sending an original in Thai, though it may be a minor concern for informal personal matters, and you can also send them both the English and the Thai translation together.

Tips to try to get the best results:

1. Stick to simple English. Avoid slang. Choose words literally, even if sometimes it's not how you would state something the same way. Keep sentences as short as feasible. Use commas.

   For example, if you write something like:

   "How are you guys doing?" A machine translator might translate that into something like "By what method are your men working?" in their language. Better to just say "Greetings to you all." or "Greetings to your family."

2. After you run your English thru the translation app for an English-to-Thai translation, ALSO SUBSEQUENTLY copy the Thai and run it thru the app again as a Thai-to-English translation. If the English translation does not match the English original sufficiently, then go back and change the English original, trying to guess a way to make the original better for a translation, and repeat the process.

While machine translations are often good between European languages, it is much more of a challenge to design machine translations between English and Asian languages (which have different word roots and various structures).

Notably, many times a translation will come out with the wrong gender, such as "him" instead of "her". This often is because the original word was gender neutral. Thai uses many gender neutral words, analogous to "them" or "you" in English. A translator might not know which gender and just put in "him".

 > Thai-English translations

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