Deciphering a script, turning written into spoken
Making a living from language
One show became the next, and life moved on. I darted from job to job, and accepted freelance work in between. I spent a year living and working in Chiang Mai before moving back to Bangkok, at a time when politically the atmosphere was stressful. I had kept my motorcycle, and it was my only form of transport around the city, yet one evening, amid many different reports of protests and other goings-on, it became unsafe to make the short 1 kilometer journey from my place of work to my home, as I would have to go across a major road, a road along which, according to news reports, roving bands of armed motorcyclists were randomly shooting at anyone and anything, while security forces were moving about ‘clearing up’ this menace with equally as deadly intent. The city waited anxiously for what would follow. It was the first coup I had experienced (but not the last unfortunately). I spent the night following developments as they were called in to the newspaper office. By dawn it was safe to travel home, and I spent the next 24 hours quietly at home. I suppose I could continue with thoughts and comments about subsequent political events, and perhaps some day I will, but as a foreigner, it is best to simply remain quiet, perhaps now even more so than at anytime before.
The Thai-English / English-Thai dictionary, paid for itself many times over
Translating run-on paragraphs
As noted, I accepted freelance translation work, and soon became involved in translating a lot of different scripts for travel programs and documentaries. I had bought a complete set of the So Setthabutr dictionary (English to Thai and Thai to English – I still have the set), and quickly became conversant with the order of the alphabet and searching for meanings of words. I probably learned more vocabulary in the following two to four years than I had in the previous 2, and much of that vocabulary pertained to historical details and events, specialized language and words, and much more. And I started seeing similarities… Thai is a language that has three distinct forms, and there is a clear difference between the written and the spoken forms of the language. Often, trying to translate something from Thai into English, I would have to read through long paragraphs to finally reach the concluding sentence that would actually constitute the topic sentence in the English version. What’s more, (and you are getting a bit of a taste of this when you read this blog entry) paragraphs are not structured as they would be in English: topic sentence, discussion, conclusion and set-up for next idea and next paragraph. In Thai there just seems to be no single subject discussed in one single paragraph, and often enough a paragraph consists of one long run-on sentence. It truly is an interesting and time-consuming task to translate correctly. (My Thai editor is probably smiling at this very instant and nodding her head in total agreement that translating is an arduous task).
Zephyr, deliquescent, pulchritudinous…
Many clients will write in flowery language, and the Thai language really does lend itself to verbosity with a plethora of decorative words. The issue is that when such language, beautiful as it may be in Thai, is translated to English, it simply cannot be done for fear that a true reproduction will induce diabetic shock in readers. Often enough I have been called after submitting a translation with the request to “beautify” the language in keeping with the original. When I try to explain that “the stupendously gorgeous vivacity of the brilliantly glowing orbs refracted in the silvery shimmering pools of heavenly liquid sprinkled on the glowing boulevard’s surface” will simply not work, there will be a moment’s silence before the order is given that “regardless, the translation has to follow the original.” I take a deep breath and expand on the beautiful prose: “The stupendously gorgeous vivacity of the brilliantly glowing and mesmerizing orbs gently undulating in a cooling zephyr, refracted in the silvery, shimmering pools of heavenly deliquescent rain sprinkled on the luminous surface of the boulevard, engrossed the pulchritudinous thespian.” Published a few days later, I receive a phone call “The translation is absolutely perfect, although could I perhaps have found an easier word for ‘gorgeous’?
Structure of poetry
Poetry or run-on sentences?
All this is to say that the two different styles between spoken and written Thai are worlds apart, and often enough, writers will forget themselves, and write dialogue for actors that is neigh on impossible to speak, and there have been enough times when I have gone through scripts and thrown up my hands in despair as I tried to memorize something that sounded stilted and unnatural. And I haven’t even touched on the many different aphorisms that are generously sprinkled into the dialogue of most characters. Still, whether it was the translation work or the many different scripts I had to wade my way through, I did learn a lot of the language from these activities, but not enough to attempt the translation of several traditional forms of rhyming poems requested by one client. A quick overview will probably tell you why: traditional, and the highest form of Thai poetry, is known as a Klong. The stanzas can be of different lengths, but the poem format is generally reflected in its name. So a ‘klong si’ (si stands for 4) will have a stanza that consists of 4 lines. Those 4 lines are broken up into two segments each. The first segment of each line will have five syllables. The second segment of each line will have a variable number of syllables, with 2 or 4 syllables in the first and third lines, and two and four syllables in the second and fourth lines respectively. This is not all, however. There are separate tones in the Thai language, and this particular form of poem requires that one of two tone markers is used at specific places within the poems. Confused yet? Then there’s the rhyming scheme:). I will stick to long convoluted run-on sentences.
