วันจันทร์ที่ 26 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2562

Rules for Comma Usage

Rules for Comma Usage
Grammarly
Grammarly
GRAMMAR TIPS
Ah, the comma. Of all the punctuation marks in English, this one is perhaps the most abused and misused. And it’s no wonder. There are lots of rules about comma usage, and often the factors that determine whether you should use one are quite subtle. But fear not! Below, you’ll find guidance for the trickiest comma questions.

What Is a Comma?
While a period ends a sentence, a comma indicates a smaller break. Some writers think of a comma as a soft pause—a punctuation mark that separates words, clauses, or ideas within a sentence.

Here’s a tip:  Commas can be tricky, but they don’t have to trip you up. Grammarly’s writing assistant can help you make sure your punctuation, spelling, and grammar are tip-top on all your favorite websites. Whether you’re writing an email, creating a presentation, or just sending a quick tweet, Grammarly can help!

วันจันทร์ที่ 19 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2562

Why are Google Translate and other translators so bad at translating Thai? I mean they are beyond bad.

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Thai is considered a hard language to translate. In translation business Thai translation is a challenge to translation services providers. An in-depth understanding of Thai culture, as well as the language, is needed for successful Thai translations.

Thai script / alphabet

Thai language has its own unique script based on the Khmer script and no link has been found to relate it to any other language. The Thai alphabet is a syllabic one and consists of 44 basic consonants. There are no independent vowels in the alphabet. Each consonant goes with an inherent vowel. There are 18 single vowel symbols, 6 diphthongs / compound vowels and 8 consonant-like vowels that combine into numerous vowel forms and which modify the consonants. A Thai translator has to face this linguistic challenge. A professional Thai translator must know that in order to employ other vowels, each consonant is written with vowel symbol markings that appear as a subscript following a consonant or as strokes before and/or after a consonant.

Thai is a tonal language

Thai words that may sound similar have completely different meanings depending on the tone. Thai is a language with 5 tones. Some words are pronounced with a high, mid or low tone and others with a rising or falling tone. For some consonants there are multiple letters which indicate different tones. The tone of a syllable is determined by a combination of the class of consonant, the type of syllable, the tone marker and the length of the vowel. The rules of the Thai language are understood by a good Thai translator performing a Thai translation.

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Thai have a ton of exceptional grammar, idiom, slang, abbreviation in even writing. If you use normal sentence that grammatically correct, it will sound really robot for Thai people.

You can compare Thai to Japanese which usual doesn’t fill the subject in the sentence. So that make Google must guess the subject by itself. We have something like that a lot. In addition, one word have a ton of meaning that have totally difference. If you want to translate Thai, you must know the context about which the person say accept it’s written everything grammatically correct but that’s rare.


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There may be other reasons, but usually this is because of a lack of data. Google Translate and similar translation systems function by building models from huge databases of parallel sentences (sentences with the same meaning in two languages). The more sentences available, the better the translation model.

It’s also possible that the languages are difficult to translate for other (e.g., structural) reasons.

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Google Translator still have a lot of issue with Thai languages for sure. They need to collect more data in Thai and make the translators learn more about Thai language just to be at par with Bing Translator of Microsoft. Lack of space between words in one issue. the combination of words to come up with different meanings is another issue. AI system of Google translators need to learn even more about Thai language for sure.
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I have noticed this for Thai in particular as well. I think this is at least partly because Thai doesn’t use spaces to break up words, so in addition to translating the meaning the software has to guess where the words are separated, and this leads to many possible combinations of words, which often is nonsensical, but that in turn would require understanding the meaning to fix.

I’m also following the question to see if someone else knows any specifics.
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The Thai language is a very complex language. Normal translators use what is called “database query” to compare words between multiple languages but this type of translation doesn’t take into account the structure of the sentence. For example;

มันไม่จริงหรอกเรื่องแบบนั้น=That story is probably not true.

Notice that มัน and เรื่อง both means “that story”

Which most translators struggle to translate properly due to the SVOC structure differences. Even google translate requires manual community input to help translate these type of complex sentences.=========================================
The other answers are good I will add some more.

Thai doesn't have any words like “was” “were” and other past tense stuff. I just tried putting a sentence with “was” in Google translate and it immediately got it wrong. One way we define “past” other than specifying date is เคย (Koey) which can be translated to “used to” and if with a verb can be used similar to an “ed” in some cases depending on the sentence.
One word can have many meaning based on the sentence and Google translate it word by word.
Lots of Thai words can be accidentally joined by apps because of no spacing between words like แม่ (Mae) for mother and น้ำ(Nam) can be joined to แม่น้ำ(Mae Nam) to mean river. Most other words can be very confusing.

What is the best Thai translator in 2019?

George Bowman
George Bowman, lives in Thailand (1999-present)

วันอังคารที่ 13 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2562

30 สำนวนภาษาอังกฤษ ที่พบเจอได้บ่อยๆ ในชีวิตประจำวัน

สำหรับการสื่อสารในภาษาอังกฤษ โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งกับเจ้าของภาษาด้วยแล้ว แน่นอนที่สุดเรื่องปวดหัวสุดๆ เลยเรื่องหนึ่งนั่นก็คือ การใช้สำนวนต่างๆ ของพวกเขานั่นเอง
วันนี้เราเลยได้รวบรวมเอาสำนวนภาษาอังกฤษที่มักพบเจอได้บ่อยๆ มาฝากเพื่อนๆ ให้ได้ชมกันแหละ ว่าแล้วก็มาเรียนรู้และศึกษากันไว้ดีกว่า อิอิ
1. “Twenty-four Seven” เนื่องจากหนึ่งวันมี 24 ชั่วโมง และหนึ่งอาทิตย์ก็มี 7 วัน สำนวนนี้จึงมีความหมายว่า “ตลอดเวลา ทุกๆนาทีของทุกๆวัน” เลยจ้า
2. “Get the ball rolling” ความหมายของสำนวนนี้ก็คือ “เริ่มทำอะไรสักอย่าง” สมมุติว่าถ้าคุณกำลังจะลงมือทำโครงการๆหนึ่ง แล้วมีคนพูดกับคุณว่า “Let’s get the ball rolling” ความหมายของเขาก็คือ “เราเริ่มลงมือกันเถอะ”
3. “Take it easy” ถ้ามีคนพูดกับคุณว่า “I don’t have any plans this weekend.  I think I’ll take it easy.” ความหมายของสำนวนนี้ก็คือ “ผ่อนคลาย” หรือ “พักผ่อน” นั่นเอง ผ่อนคลายกันหน่อย อิอิ


Learn English from Daily life Stories-Are taxis safe in Bangkok?

George Bowman
George Bowman lives in Thailand (1999-present)


Are taxis safe in Bangkok?
Throughout the years I have literally ridden in thousands of taxis in Bangkok. Old ones, new ones, many with seasoned drivers and a few drivers on the first day of the job. This is what I have learned about taxis in The Big Mango.
My first week in Bangkok, I thought I was going to die in a taxi. Even the driver thought so as he kept saying “Die, die, die.” when I gave him the written address in Thai of where I wanted to go. Later, I found out the word can in Thai sounds like the word die.
The majority of taxi drivers in this concrete jungle are just trying to make a living, much like I was. Usually, taxi drivers are from families in Issan. This Northeast region is considered one of the poorest in Thailand and these guys come to Bangkok for work to help support their families back home. The driver of the taxi either owns or leases a daily car. If they make B20,000 or $600 per month, it would be a good month. Not an easy life.
Standing near the curb one morning, I was trying to flag down a taxi. Eventually, a taxi pulled over and we headed to my work. The driver kept looking at me through the rearview mirror. Fifteen minutes later and two blocks from the school, he was still looking at me when we bumped into the back of a city bus. I quickly paid and got out. I can still see him standing in the street pointing at me and yelling “Ba.” This means crazy in Thai. It was on October 31st. I was wearing a dress.
Another time I was sitting in a taxi that was stuck in traffic. Then we got a flat tire. I say we because I helped push the taxi off of the main road. The driver also wanted me to pay for the flat tire, which I refused. His reasoning was that if he had not picked me up, then he would not have got a flat tire. I just gave him B100 and walked away.
After a hard day at work, I grabbed a taxi to head home. In Thai, I told him Sammakorn which was the village that I lived in. He shook his head yes. My thinking was to have a short nap for the 20-minute ride. About an hour later, I woke up. We were in Samut Prakarn. I got home late.
My biggest complaint with taxi drivers often involved the route they wanted to take to get to my destination. After all, I had lived in Bangkok for a few years by then and knew the city. And most of the time, I was wrong.
The majority of Bangkok taxi drivers want short trips. They want to go the fastest way and on to the next customer. Not always, but usually. Plus, the different routes are a great way to see new areas of the Venice of the East…