Broaden your linguistic horizons with ZippyLingo's Thai translation services

An odd concept to an English speaker, but Thai doesn't have spaces between words. So, how do you start and end words? Glad you asked! Thai uses specific vowels to start and end syllables and words.

• เ แ โ ใ ไ are all preposed vowels, so they start a syllable

• อำ or ะ ends a syllable

Other rules dictate whether a syllable is open (using ใ or ไ) and which letters not to use over syllable-final consonants (อั and อ็).

So, no spaces in Thai? Seems straightforward enough. Well, actually, it's not quite a blanket rule; you shouldn't use spaces between words, but you'll need to use spaces in these instances:

• Between sentences/phrases

• After a comma

• After a colon

• Before and after the repetition mark (ๆ)

• Before and after rank and/or name

• After the preposition 'ณ'

Complicated spacing is one of the many reasons why it's always best to have your English to Thai translation done by professional Thai translation services.

Unlike English, you need to consider a few additional things when deciding on an appropriate pronoun. In English, you need to know:

• Gender

• Single or plural

• The 'person' (as in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd)

There's a bit more to it with Thai. There are different pronouns depending on how familiar you are with the person, how formal the encounter is, the level of respect, and general politeness.

In Thai, you should consider three main factors when deciding which pronoun to use. First, in which 'person' are you communicating? Is it 1st person, which is equivalent to 'I' and 'we' in English? Let's use that in our example for now. The next thing to consider is the gender of the person you're referring to. If referring to a singular male in the 1st person, you would use the pronoun 'ผม'. If referring to a singular female, you would use 'ดิฉัน'. There is a third option, and that's the unisex pronoun 'ฉัน'. If it's a communication in a legal context, you would use the unisex pronoun 'ข้าพเจ้า'. What about the 1st person plural pronoun in Thai (the equivalent of 'we')? In that case, you would use the unisex pronouns' พวกเรา' or 'เรา'.

If you're communicating in the 2nd person ('you' in English), you would use 'คุณ' for singular and 'พวกคุณ' for plural. In a formal context, or when addressing a person of high respect, you would use 'ท่าน' for the singular and 'พวกท่าน' for the plural. Some companies use the more formal pronouns when addressing their customers as a sign of respect for them.

The 3rd person pronouns ('they', 'he', and 'she') don't have formal options like those in 1st and 2nd person do, so it's a bit easier to remember. When referring to a female, you use 'เธอ', or the unisex pronoun 'เขา', and when referring to a male, you use 'เขา'.

The official measurement system used in modern-day Thailand is the metric system. So, Celsius to measure temperature, metres to measure distance, and MPH to measure speed.

However, old Thai units of measurement are still in use in some instances. For the measurement of land area, you may still see the terms' wa' (two metres), 'ngan' (400 sqm), and 'rai' (1,600 sqm) used. Additionally, while the term 'baht' is most commonly associated with Thailand's official currency (the Thai Baht), 'baht' is also used in relation to the weight of gold (equivalent to 15.16 grams).

ZippyLingo's professional Thai translation services will know which units are more appropriate to use based on your industry, audience, or the region of Thailand you're marketing to.

Typically, Western apps and websites are aimed at the Western market, so they're optimised for higher-end devices with faster internet speeds.

While Thailand's average smartphone specifications and 3G/4G coverage have improved in recent years, many Thai consumers still use more 'mid-range' devices, with less memory and storage than the smartphones more common in Western markets.

It's also worth noting that, despite the higher 4G coverage in Thailand, data costs are still a potential issue for many Thai consumers.

If you're optimising websites or apps for the Thai market, you can increase reach and improve user experience by making sure your content is appropriate for smartphones with less memory and CPU power. High-spec games or apps that require more memory may cause the system to crash, freeze, or be unable to load correctly.

Some things you can do to ensure a better user experience include allowing the user to choose between higher or lower graphics settings, and ensuring your app size is manageable.

Testing is also essential — make sure you test your website, game, or app across a range of mid-tier devices and operating systems. If you're based in a country with high-end mobile devices and fast internet speeds, you need to get some mid-range devices and throttle your internet speeds to reflect the realistic consumer conditions seen in the Thai market. If you don't do this, your website, app, or service may work perfectly in your home country, but flop when launched in Thailand.

When localising for Thai markets, your layout, font, and UI (user interface) design are essential to consider. Due to Thai being longer on average than English, you'll need to ensure it still fits within your UI once translated.

The most important thing you need to ensure is that you consider the 'accent' characters that are abundant in Thai. These accents can appear both above and below normal characters, so if your chosen font doesn't allow enough room between lines, your text will become incomprehensible.

For example, the word 'น่ารู้', which means 'interesting', only makes sense when the accent characters are displayed with it — they are part of the word. ZippyLingo's professional Thai translation services will pick up on details like this and make sure everything still fits.

Some languages have longer words or sentences than others. When compared to English, this is true of most Eastern languages (and some Western ones), and Thai is no exception. Due to the average character width of the Thai alphabet and the average word length in the vocabulary, Thai can be around 15% longer when translated from English.

When localising for the Thai market, you'll need to consider the translated length of your content. Whether for a website, email, app, advert, or social media, you might have to get creative to ensure it all fits.

Professional Thai translation services will pick up on this difference and find you a great solution. Thai translation experts will often use shorter words that are synonymous with the original, for example, or omit some words altogether if the message is still clear after doing so.

You can also consider using certain universal images or symbols to replace related words in your content, as these often take up less space. For instance, try using the << symbol in place of 'ย้อนกลับไป' ('rewind' in English) — the message and meaning are still the same, but you've saved yourself some space.

Modernisation and digitalisation go hand-in-hand these days, and just like how the UK and US have become increasingly tech-focused in the last decade, Thailand has too.

With over 75% of Thai people accessing the internet via smartphone, the mobile market in Thailand is a great resource for your international company to tap into.

While the average user's smartphone technology is still in the mid-range for specs, there's a vast user base that can be marketed to using digital, mobile technology.

Take advantage of the mobile-first market in Thailand with smartphone-optimised websites, ads, and apps. If the product or service you're creating for the Thai market is primarily app-based, then make sure you prioritise Android, as it's significantly more common in Thailand than iOS.

Most western countries use the 24-hour clock system, but Thailand has its own six-hour clock for everyday usage.

Traditionally, Thai people divide the 24 hours of a day into four six-hour sections. Each section is given a classifying word to determine what part of the day it belongs to, with midnight and midday having their own terms, just as they do in English. To tell the time using this clock system, you'll need to know the modifiers that go alongside the numbers, as each quarter has a different one. If not fully understood, the Thai six-hour clock could see you turning up six hours late or six hours early for an appointment or meeting.

• For the first half of daytime (07:00 to 12:59): ... mong chao (...โมงเช้า)

• For the latter half of daytime (13:00 to 18:59): Bai ... mong (บ่าย...โมง)

• For the first half of nighttime (19:00 to 00:59): ... thum (...ทุ่ม)

• For the latter half of nighttime (01:00 to 06:59): Ti ... (ตี...)

There are even more terms used for specific times of day. The sixth (or last) hour of every quarter has its own name; in the same order as the above list, these are 'thiang' or 'thiang wan' (เที่ยง or เที่ยงวัน), 'yam kham' (ย่ำค่ำ), 'thiang khuen' (เที่ยงคืน), and 'yam rung' (ย่ำรุ่ง). These effectively translate to 'dawn', 'midday', 'dusk', and 'midnight'.

And if you thought that was a lot, you'll be surprised to hear that the terms can get even more specific, such as using 'hok thum' or 'ti hok' as alternative terms for midnight and dawn, with 'hok' being the Thai word for 'six'. If you're not a Thai speaker, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed, but it's actually quite simple; 'hok thum' effectively translates to 'the sixth hour of early night', which makes perfect sense when you know it refers to midnight.

Please keep in mind that this system is very colloquial; the six-hour clock may be interpreted slightly differently from one Thai person to the next, and the terminology may vary from person to person or place to place.

The 24-hour standard clock is still used in Thailand in many official settings, such as computing, hospitals, emergency services, the military, navigation, astronomy, and aviation. It's important that you use the correct clock based on your audience and sector.

The Thai naming system is slightly different from what a Westerner may be used to, so you may need to adjust your website or CRM platform. Nicknames are very important in Thai culture, and they work quite differently to nicknames in English.

Most Thai people have a nickname, usually one or two syllables long, given to them at birth or in early childhood. The nickname may be an abbreviation of a person's real full name, but they often hold no similarity.

Nicknames are used heavily in Thai culture throughout both childhood and adulthood. They're used so often and in so many settings that many people won't even know the given name of their coworkers, friends, or business associates.

The full name format (the given name and family name) is still used in official and formal settings, such as legal or medical documents, contracts, etc., but it's important to bear the heavy use of nicknames in mind when localising for Thailand.

Things like customer service communications, CRM systems, and contact forms with name fields should be localised to account for the 1-2 syllable nicknames that most Thai people use in place of their full, official name.

As one of the leading countries in Southeast Asia for social media usage, and home to Bangkok, the most Facebook-connected metropolis in the world, Thailand is a country where social media is essential.

Additionally, as we all know, video marketing is hugely successful in some markets, and Thailand is definitely one of them. With an extensive video marketing sector, primarily situated in the capital, more and more markets are turning to social media and YouTube videos to launch their content in the Thai market.

Social media and video marketing allow you to deliver information and content in bite-sized chunks, which are more likely to hold the attention of Thai consumers and get them to engage with you.

Translating and localising your content for Thailand isn't necessarily a one-and-done situation; the capital, Bangkok, has a very different content culture from the rest of Thailand, so it's best to treat it separately when it comes to localisation.

There is a lot of wealth and culture in Bangkok that has caused a lifestyle and digital-literacy disparity with the rest of Thailand. Some differences are so stark that you could almost consider Bangkok a separate country, just because of the cultural split.

What does this mean for your localisation? In short, you'll need to consider Bangkok's cultural nuances separately from the rest of Thailand, creating a different content experience. The platforms, content, and mediums that those in Bangkok are likely to seek out and consume can be vastly different to what the rest of Thailand wants to see, so targeted localisations are recommended.

Cultural differences aside, there are also linguistic variations to consider. It's important to remember that, typically, Thai consumers can understand their local dialect, as well as Central Thai, so localisation into Central Thai is the most common practice. However, if you are creating content targeting consumers in a particular area of Thailand, you might opt to localise for their specific regional dialect instead.