Translator device

[t0oL1]

I saw a video on a translator device on YouTube tested in Bangkok. Would save lots of typing in bars- no WiFi required. ~$150 without earbuds ($350) 15%discount codes

Late edit: speaking of bars- I don't see Cambodian listed. Viet, Korean, Japanese yes

[fedssocr]

Google translate seems to work OK enough. I don't think I'd want to carry around yet another device. I can't stand that guy so I will have a hard time watching this video. 🙂

[t0oL1]

yes he needs a shave and decent shirt.

 

Google is so bad I have to translate, then translate BACK and see how bad it really IS. Then try again if it's really bad.

[omega]

Not sure how useful it would be in a noisy bar.

[vinapu]

14 minutes ago, omega said:

Not sure how useful it would be in a noisy bar.

in bar not much but in the room , quite yes

[fedssocr]

2 hours ago, t0oL1 said:

yes he needs a shave and decent shirt.

 

Google is so bad I have to translate, then translate BACK and see how bad it really IS. Then try again if it's really bad.

Certainly Google translate is not great for Thai. But I can typically figure out the gist well enough to communicate. Typically it's the Thai person who will initiate the interaction so they must also find it usable enough. And the camera feature for translating written menus and signs works fairly well.

[Latbear4blk]

2 hours ago, fedssocr said:

Certainly Google translate is not great for Thai. But I can typically figure out the gist well enough to communicate. Typically it's the Thai person who will initiate the interaction so they must also find it usable enough. And the camera feature for translating written menus and signs works fairly well.

And you do not need to type. You can set it for the oral input. It has a conversation mode that works quite well with English, Spanish, and Portuguese, the languages I use.

[fedssocr]

they touted that it also works well with Japanese in conversation mode when the Pixel 6 phones launched a couple of years ago. 

But Thai translation has always lagged for whatever reason. I presume it's just a difficult language and probably less popular than some other languages. I'm hoping that the rise of AI will make a big leap in this area. I guess there are some new AI products coming out already that have on-the-fly translation which are exciting a lot of people.

[vinapu]

I can envision that in 10 years time,  if that much , such translator will be part of any bar setting along with check bin, free to use for all

[10tazione]

3 hours ago, fedssocr said:

But Thai translation has always lagged for whatever reason.

I think the problem is that the Thai language depends so strongly on the context. One isolated sentence can mean 10 different things if you don't know which context it refers to, no translation app can help there. Especially Thai pronouns can drive one crazy in this regard.

I speak to another person and say

พี่ให้น้องแล้วมื่อวาน

It could mean "I gave it to you yesterday" or it could mean "You gave it to me yesterday", depending on whom I speak to (relative age/status).

My Google translate app says "I gave it to you yesterday" so it's 50/50 chance that it is correct. How can the translator app know whom I am speaking with?

I think, translating Thai to English is more difficult than the other way. You must speak in a certain way so that the context becomes more clear, then it can work well. Polite Thai is probably more easy to translate than colloquial Thai. Translating longer pieces of text should work better than short ones.

Language experts please correct if I am talking nonsense ...

[Latbear4blk]

One more thing to praise Google Translate: you do not need wifi. You can download the dictionaries for the languages you use, and it works without being hooked to the internet.

[fedssocr]

5 hours ago, 10tazione said:

I think, translating Thai to English is more difficult than the other way. You must speak in a certain way so that the context becomes more clear, then it can work well. Polite Thai is probably more easy to translate than colloquial Thai. Translating longer pieces of text should work better than short ones.

Language experts please correct if I am talking nonsense ...

Certainly slang and colloquialism will be more difficult in pretty much any language. But I think it depends a bit on what your ultimate goal is. If you want a perfect translation that is one thing. But if you just need enough to get the gist that's another. For example, I enjoy the Thais on Twitter who review massage places. They're obviously writing for a Thai audience in Thai. If I plug their text into Google Translate it is definitely far from perfect, but it's good enough to get an idea of what's going on.

[thaiophilus]

8 hours ago, 10tazione said:

I think the problem is that the Thai language depends so strongly on the context. One isolated sentence can mean 10 different things if you don't know which context it refers to, no translation app can help there. Especially Thai pronouns can drive one crazy in this regard.

I speak to another person and say

พี่ให้น้องแล้วมื่อวาน

It could mean "I gave it to you yesterday" or it could mean "You gave it to me yesterday", depending on whom I speak to (relative age/status).

 

Footnote for non-Thai speakers: literally he says "older_sibling give younger_sibling already yesterday" which is a very Thai idiom - pronouns which literally refer to kinship are often used between people who aren't related at all, because they denote relative status, which is culturally important.

So I think it doesn't have to be about "you" and "I" at all - it could also be talking about two entirely different people. Only the context can tell.

(Personally I give up trying to translate when I see ให้ because it's used in so many idioms where word order can make a big difference, and often means "cause" rather than "give". Or something like that. ☹️)