Making Thai Subtitles: Culture, Slang & Curse Words [S7.E72] (Classic ReCast)

Greg 00:00:00 Hey, guys, here is this month's classic re airing of an old episode. This is season three, episode 77, which came out in September 2019, a few years ago, but I think it's still relevant. This was a really interesting one. I thought I always liked this one. It didn't get a lot of play when it first came out, but I find it fascinating. So for this one, I interviewed a woman named pom who was a Netflix translator, and some of the tools she uses have probably changed in the intervening years. But, a lot of the strategies and ways that she thinks probably have not. So I think it's a pretty interesting insight into how people deal with second languages and technology and the nuances of translating, English into into another language, which I, I think we all know is way harder, more difficult than it, than it probably first seems, which palm gets into in detail. So yeah, I like this interview. I thought it was pretty cool. I hope you like it too.


Greg 00:00:59 On this episode, we talk to Palm, who creates Thai subtitles for English language television shows.

Ed 00:01:06 So if you'd like some insight into the surprisingly technical and nuanced skill of Thai subtitling, you'll love this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:01:32 And welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 looking for the original formula for Red bull. And when I found it, I decided not to leave. Mostly because I haven't slept since.

Ed 00:01:45 And I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract. 19 years ago, fell in love with trying to get a straight statement from the Thai government on almost any public policy. And I never left.

Greg 00:01:59 Good luck with that.

Ed 00:02:00 Yeah. It's, it's been quite a long struggle. Before we start, a huge thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. For more info on how you can become a patron, just head to the support page on Bangkok podcast.com.

Ed 00:02:12 And of course, one of the cool things our patrons get is an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we talk about current events in Thailand and whatever else comes into our minds. We just finished recording this week's bonus show, and we chatted about how Greg managed to get a random Chinese guy to yell the F-word at him in a mall, and why the Thai government really needs to hire a professional PR person, as we think we'd all prefer a drivel of solid info to a flood of hearsay.

Greg 00:02:41 True that. Yeah, that guy yelling at me with something else. All right. Well, hey, before we jump into it, we have to mention two great reviews of the podcast on the US Apple Store. one from Mk3 eight nine and one from John S. thanks to both, but especially to John, who I don't know if you read it, but he left a very long, detailed review. and he said he loves the history podcasts and a few other things. So we'll be doing more of those for sure.

Greg 00:03:10 But it's always funny when you get a review from someone and they're like in episode blah, blah, blah. I mean, I think that this, this, this, this, but not as much as an episode, blah, blah blah, like, you really know that the people have done their homework, you know?

Ed 00:03:21 Yeah, man, we appreciate it.

Greg 00:03:23 Yeah, all the reviews are great. So thanks, guys, to those two who left reviews and to you, if you haven't left a review yet, then head over to iTunes or whatever thing you use and leave a review. We always read through them and we appreciate them, and apparently it helps the rankings or something like that, I don't know. That's beyond my pay scale, which is pretty sad to begin with. So anyway, on this episode, we talked to palm, a translator who creates the Thai subtitles for English programs on a major streaming service, which will remain unnamed for contractual reasons. most people don't pay too much attention to subtitles, but it's actually a very specific form of translation, requiring not only language skills, but familiarity with foreign cultures, genre slang, and the willingness to dig through Google and various other dictionaries to translate not only a word, but the meaning behind a phrase or sentence, which is very difficult.

Greg 00:04:16 It's also a highly technical job, which also requires the translator to learn some pretty cutting edge software. As Palme explains, this is not as easy as it looks, and it was really cool sitting down talking to her. And I think this is a really interesting sort of side view of our Thai language series, which takes an interesting little view of the whole thing. But we had a very interesting conversation. So here is my interview with Pom. All right. Well, we are sitting in a little room at the back of a Starbucks, which seems to be where I record most of these interviews these days. Thankfully, they got all right coffee I think. So. Anyway, don't get online and tell me that Starbucks has bad coffee. Anyway, we're sitting in the back of a Starbucks with my brand new friend Pam, and she is an English lecturer at Mahidol University, and she's also a freelance English to Thai translator for some unnamed streaming services. And I thought it would be really interesting to get someone like this on and, a friend of a friend.

Greg 00:05:22 First of all, welcome to the Bangkok Podcast.

Palm 00:05:24 Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

Greg 00:05:26 Oh, my.

Palm 00:05:26 Pleasure. Here.

Greg 00:05:27 Yeah, I for a long time I thought it would be really interesting to talk about this because, we've had a lot of polyglots and linguists and translators on the show in the past and our Thai language series, but, I think translating has to be a unique skill, right? Yeah. And especially when you combine it with the modern technology of streaming services and the speed with which all of this travels around the world. So I wanted to talk about this, and I thought it would be interesting to get some insight into how you approach it and what the difficulties are, etc. so to start off, how did you get into this?

Palm 00:06:03 Okay, translating, the translating. It's actually been one of my dream jobs since I was a kid. Really? Yeah, yeah, because like, I grew up learning English from being couch potato, basically. Oh yeah.

Palm 00:06:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just learned from watching TV because my dad signed up for like back then it was like ABC and then it became UBC. It became true versions. Okay. Yeah. Like years ago when I was in like when I was ten, I think. Yeah, I grew up learning English from like watching all these shows, you know, back in the 90s. Right. Like sometime like because like I went to I went to high school, like, all my life.

Greg 00:06:35 Right. And your parents are both Thai.

Palm 00:06:36 What about Thai.

Greg 00:06:38 Or.

Palm 00:06:38 Anything? No, no, no. And I went to high school with all my life, like Thai university in Thai high school. Okay. Yeah. So, like, I just, like, spent my, my whole, like, childhood watching all these shows, you know, and like, watching, like, reading these subtitles and just, like, trying to immerse, like, by osmosis, basically I think. And then I would like write down like certain words that I see on TV with a subtitle like, oh, like this word means this, this means this.

Palm 00:07:01 And like eventually it kind of like formed like a sentence in my head, like, automatically like this would mean this, this would mean this. That's like how I became interested in subtitles.

Greg 00:07:12 Wow. First of all, that pisses me off because your couch potato skills are put to shame by mine. I'm the chief couch potato, and I've never learned anything sitting on the sofa, so kudos to you.

Palm 00:07:22 Yeah. I mean, I turn it into a living. Wow.

Greg 00:07:26 Damn it. You got to teach a course because I'll be your first student.

Palm 00:07:28 That's what I always tell my students. They learn from being a couch potato.

Greg 00:07:34 So from there, you just kind of grew up wanting to sort of dive into language, right?

Palm 00:07:38 Right. That's always been my one of my dream job today to be a translator. Wow. Yeah. And then I got into university. I was in English major. And like, my major was also like, translation. Yeah. And then, for to when I get first.

Palm 00:07:52 When you first got into subtitles translation, it was like after I graduated and one of my friends was working at MTV Thailand at the time, which is now defunct. Yeah, it was I think like 12, 12 years ago, right after I graduated. Okay. Yeah. And she was like, oh, like one of the subtitles. Translator is is resigning. So, like, why don't you, like, apply? So they apply and they got the job. Yeah. And I was, like, translating subtitles for MTV Thailand. Wow. Yeah, but it was, like, mostly reality shows. You know, like one of those, like, pimp my ride way back. Like way back when. Right. Like one of those, like, celebrity, reality shows. You know, like, what's her name? And, like, Nick and Jessica back then. Oh, God. Yeah.

Greg 00:08:37 Nick from. He was from Backstreet Boys.

Palm 00:08:39 98 degrees. Oh.

Greg 00:08:40 And forgive me for getting my boybands mixed up.

Palm 00:08:44 Yeah, I was the fan girl. Okay. So, like, that kind of helped. Like to work at MTV. You have to be, like, a fan of, like, all this, like pop culture. Yeah. So like. And then also my boss, my boss also like, introduced me to some people at Two Visions because like we were airing on visions and he was like introduced me to all these people who were also like subtitle translator. So I was working full time at MTV Thailand and also like translating some subtitles for True Vision as well. Wow. Yeah.

Greg 00:09:14 Do you ever watch a show that like you hate but you still have to do translations?

Palm 00:09:17 Oh my God, all the time. Really? All the time? Yeah.

Greg 00:09:19 It must have been rough.

Palm 00:09:20 Yeah. There was, there was like some, like so like ridiculous. Valueless. I would say like reality shows that I would have to be like, okay, it's my job. I have to like, push through.

Palm 00:09:31 But I always say, like, people don't watch this. You know, I would be very judgmental.

Greg 00:09:36 Yeah. I got to be honest. I, I, I look at some of the shows now, like, I don't watch a lot of American TV, but I watch some of the reality shows especially, and I'm like, what the hell is going on over there? This is ridiculous. This provides no value to anyone. It's just so manipulative. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent so I know you can't say who you work for, but, let's use the Big Bang Theory as as as an example. Say someone says, hey Pam, I have ten episodes of The Big Bang Theory. I need you to do translations for subtitles for. Can you walk us through what you would do?

Palm 00:10:08 So like when they advertised and they were like, send me the link to the so we do on their website on the system. Basically they will have like a link of of all these shows, they all at once or sometimes it can be all at once or like one at a time.

Palm 00:10:20 Okay. And then they have all the deadlines like line up, like so you know, like when you like have to submit it. Yeah. And then I would watch like if I got a whole season I would watch like each show first like once and then just to get the gist of it. And that would also be like a show guy. Basically a show guy would tell you like what the show is about, like what to look for, like some localization notes.

Greg 00:10:42 You're talking about that specific episode or the show in.

Palm 00:10:44 General, the show in general. And there would also be, Explanation of each episode to you know, what to look out for. And there are going to be these sensitive words.

Greg 00:10:54 Like on this episode, Sheldon acts like a dick.

Palm 00:10:56 Yeah, yeah. And there will be, like, some kind of, like, sensitive words that you have to look out for, and then they have to, like, keep in mind that, oh, I cannot use certain words or that I have to pay attention, you know, to not like to you not to use like some offensive words basically.

Greg 00:11:12 Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

Palm 00:11:14 Yeah. And then we'll watch the whole show and then we'll just like have a rough translation of what they want, what they want to like translate in my head. And then they will just like maybe take a note of of the certain phrases of, of idioms that might be problematic when I, when I'm translating. Yeah. And then they will like, translate it and then just say, oh, they have to like look into all these phrases and they just, you know, go through them.

Greg 00:11:37 So you basically watch the show once to get a gist of it, and then you watch it twice, like pause, play, pause.

Palm 00:11:43 Play, pause, play.

Greg 00:11:44 Yeah. And then enter in the text on the website as you go. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, like, custom built software to help you. Yeah, yeah.

Palm 00:11:50 Yeah. They have, like, the whole script, like for you, you have like the line break and everything.

Palm 00:11:54 So you basically just like type in. Yeah. Just type in the translation.

Palm 00:11:58 Yeah. Yeah. They have a pretty advanced software. The system they used.

Greg 00:12:02 Yeah. Sounds pretty cool. Better than the old days of sitting at home with a pad and a pencil on one knee, and then a dictionary on the other.

Palm 00:12:08 I used, I mean, when I used to work for MTV, we didn't have the script that we transcribed and then we translate. So I have to like, transcribe in my head and just like, just listen to the show and just translate. Yeah. We didn't have a script. Like, to have a script would be a blessing, would be like a bonus. Yeah. But usually we just like, listen to the show and just translate whatever they're saying. So a lot of mishaps.

Greg 00:12:33 What happens if you get to something right now? Or say you get to a phrase or an idiom or something that you just don't know how to translate? What? What do you do?

Palm 00:12:40 Like it? I think like since we are in the Google age, I think like we are very fortunate to be able to just look for any kind of information or just ask anyone.

Palm 00:12:49 You know, like for example, I mean, if I come across like a certain phrases that might be hard. I mean, personally for me would be like hip hop slang or like niche slang, you know, like hip hop or rap slangs. Right, right. Yeah. And I was like, I mean, this day we have the Urban Dictionary or you can say like, look for information anywhere. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then I, I this day, I don't think I have ever come across phrases that I have not been able to translate yet.

Greg 00:13:16 Right. Man's crazy. The technology is making it so.

Greg 00:13:20 So I mean, the opportunities for for ease of these things is really amazing now. Yeah, I remember I think I've talked about this on the show before and back in the day when I was teaching, I remember one of my students came up to me, the brave one, with like four of her friends, and they were all behind her. And she said, Teacher Greg, what's the difference between sidle, strut, swagger and saunter? I was like, what the hell?

Palm 00:13:46 Show them. Do you show them? You have to, like, swagger and saunter.

Greg 00:13:50 I would have if I knew, but it's like. How do you how do you show the difference between, like, the saunter and swagger? I don't know. I would have looked like a fool, but, if I had Google, then this was.

Palm 00:14:01 This was 15 years ago.

Greg 00:14:02 But if I had Google on my phone, I probably would have been able to do it.

Palm 00:14:04 I know, like back then I was it was like there was a lot of mistranslations, I would say on my part from lack of Google. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg 00:14:12 So generally speaking, what are some of the things you have to keep in mind when you're translating? I mean, linguistically, culturally. like time sensitive or lengthwise or anything like that.

Palm 00:14:23 yeah. All that, all that. Usually we always have a guideline. No, the rules that we have to follow. You know, because like with subtitles, you have to have a very specific, like length that you can use, for example.

Palm 00:14:34 and like I said, the software is very advanced. So like if you go over the character's limit it will tell you like, oh, this is an error. You should like cutters, you make it shorten. Like shorten it. Yeah. So basically, like I said that I watched the whole show first. I just took it like I have to pay attention to the relationships between the characters. You know, I have to keep in mind what pronouns they would use. They the ending words. They would use the type, the tone, the tone of voice, the tone of language that I would assign to each character. Because like sometimes, for example, like you said, Big Bang Theory, Sheldon would have a very specific way of like his like, structure of sentence, right? Right. Yeah. He would sound nerdy. He would, they say all these, like, big words or something like Penny. Would they be, like, a bit more simple?

Greg 00:15:19 So do you have to adjust then the language here.

Greg 00:15:21 Like the vocabulary. So you have to use like more scientific type words for Sheldon and then more like street slang for Penny.

Palm 00:15:27 Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Greg 00:15:28 Interesting. Wow.

Palm 00:15:30 Because I, I just translated, a while ago, translated this show and I think is like one of the most difficult aspects of Thai language is royal language. Right? Yeah. And it just translated a show, a documentary where I had to use the documentary about a foreign European royal family.

Greg 00:15:49 Yeah. Oh, okay. But at the same time family

Palm 00:15:50 Not the Thai family.

Palm 00:15:52 No. Yeah. But at the same time, you have to keep in mind that this is a royal family. So you have to, like, say that you still use the royal language, but at the same time, it wasn't like I cannot use the full on like, the King's language because it would be, like, too long to leave because it would have a bunch of, like, fancy words right? To use.

Palm 00:16:11 Yeah. And I have to keep in mind also like what kind of pronouns the royals would use with each other. You know, because I cannot possibly know. So I can only, like, guess and just, like, make it sound royalty.

Greg 00:16:25 Wow. Have you ever done any, any movies or TV shows that, have Thailand as the subject matter? That you have to be careful?

Palm 00:16:33 not so far. No, no, no, I can, like I can, I cannot imagine they're working on, like, hangover with all these, like, all these, like, very sensitive subjects about Thailand.

Greg 00:16:42 Sure, sure. They're dealing with like ladyboys and drugs and crime and.

Palm 00:16:46 Stuff. But we do have like a guideline though, like they would have usually have. Like I said, the localization notes that we have to pay attention to, like, not use any offensive words, you know, like for the minorities or for LGBTQ or all these words, you know, like sometimes in court in the past, one of my friends was actually translating a show about, American football, I think.

Palm 00:17:07 And they were like all these black athletes, you know, and when they call each other the N-word. Yeah. And my friends is like, full on. Yeah, just full on use, like equivalent of the N-word in Thai. And they got they got back to him and it was yeah. No, no, no, not tone it down. You have to tone it down like that. Cannot like that would be too offensive. Yeah. Yeah. So like I would say the same, you know you have to pay attention to the cultural context of course, in the audience, you know, because like, even if with, with curse words, even though the like the f word or all this word used all the time in English, right? But in time, we don't have to always use the exact same word. The exact same meaning.

Greg 00:17:48 What about dealing with different Western cultures, like. Yeah. A lot of British shows. For instance, in British culture, they curse a lot more than American culture.

Greg 00:17:56 So have you ever come up to something like that?

Palm 00:17:58 All the time? actually, like I, I would say, like, sometimes it's actually more fun to me for me to translate British show because they have all these, like, I would say, fun and like interesting curse words. And you have to like, do I would say like a gym, a vocabulary gymnastics in your head. Yeah. I just, a while a while ago I translated, a stand up comedy by a very famous English comedian and Jimmy Carr.

Greg 00:18:25 Oh, my God, I love Jimmy Carr but he is raw.

Palm 00:18:28 I love Jimmy Carr. But yeah, I when I saw that, I was like, I'm doing this. And it was like when they watched the show once, they're like, oh no. Like, oh no, he's so crass and, like, so crude.

Greg 00:18:39 All right, while we're talking about this, let's get into specifics. And I'm going to have to bleep myself here. Yeah.

Greg 00:18:44 But when Jimmy Carr says something like you know, he's picking on an audience member which is famous for doing and he says something like, you know, you're an ignorant cunt. How would.

Palm 00:18:53 Exactly.

Palm 00:18:55 How would you translate hat? That's the word that I had, like trouble with, like the C word. Yeah. And he was like, using a portmanteau. Okay. Like when he uses, they combine two words together. Like to mean to win, in other words. It was like I spent two days thinking, like, wow, how am I going to, like, make this sound like, translate the joke in Thai? It was like very funny and also very funny. Yeah. Yeah. I spent two days and I came up with, like, another portmanteau that a lot like Thai people might have to pay attention to would be like, oh wait, was that a word they combined together?

Greg 00:19:26 That's funny.

Palm 00:19:27 Yeah. Yeah. He was like, using the C word and also like some some other word I cannot remember, like maybe C-word and Baker or something.

Palm 00:19:35 Oh, yeah. And it had to be like, Combine these two words together to come up with something that sounds as offensive, but not.

Greg 00:19:42 Like shockingly offensive.

Palm 00:19:44 Yeah, yeah, that that's still possible to the audience as a subtitle. So that was very hard.

Greg 00:19:49 What happens if you come up against a slang word that doesn't exist? Like if I'm doing something and I call someone like a dick nugget, which doesn't mean anything, but it it carries with it. Like, if I said that to someone, they would know that it would be a slur, right?

Greg 00:20:02 A goofy, funny slur. Yeah, but there's no official definition of that. How would.


Palm 00:20:06 For translation, we say we don't translate words. We translate the concept, we translate the ideas. Yeah. That's the that's the basic idea. So, like, even if you use like some unknown words that you come up with. Yeah. That you just come up with that we can use like existing words in Thai but maybe make it like sound as funny, you know, like we can make it like so for example, you know, like words for a penis.

Palm 00:20:31 We cannot just say the key word, right? Yeah.

Greg 00:20:34 Yeah. I'll use the power of the bleed very liberally on this.

Palm 00:20:38 You cannot use it at the time or the direct highway. So we just use something as visual, you know. So for example, I would, I would use the word for banana.

Greg 00:20:47 Okay.

Palm 00:20:47 Yeah. Like glue or, or something to, like to make it sound like. Oh he's he's cursing. He's cursing. But like, not as, like a direct one because like, if he says come up with a new word, the audience wouldn't get it right. You know. Yeah. Yeah. So we just we in translation, we just like said, we translate ideas like, not the meaning of the word. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Just to just to convey the meaning.

Greg 00:21:09 Well, that's really interesting because I think when we've all seen instances where someone has taken the text of something and put it into Google Translate, and the output has just been a disaster and a really good example of this I just saw this morning, actually, my buddy Dan Frazier tweeted it. Let me just bring it up here. this was seen on the Samui island, and I think they were trying to tell people to watch out when you're riding a motorcycle because you have the bag on your shoulder and some people can take it. So this is what the sign said. It said. With a bad motorcycle accident, the rabbit carcass bag or women's necklace walking on the street or sidewalk. The behavior of criminals who have confessed to the crime and arrest information. One. Women tend to be the remains of the bag. The shoulder within the right hand. Two the rabbit carcasses. Necklaces. Who wears a neck visible. Three secluded location and easy escape suggestion. One. Hold the bag with his left, front or left. Two. Do not wear a sweater or closed entirely aligned. Wear a shirt with a collar and three. Be careful when bringing your own precious self.

Greg 00:22:15 So yeah, when you translate directly, it's a disaster. But translating the concepts.

Palm 00:22:20 Yeah. That's that's the idea of translating the concept, translating the thoughts, not the word itself. Right.

Greg 00:22:25 Yeah, yeah. So can you think of any like, in the past, maybe any particularly difficult concepts or phrases that have stymied you or caused you to really search hard. I mean, beyond Jimmy Carr, but like any any, are there any common, Western concepts or language that you always find like, oh, geez, how am I going to do this?

Palm 00:22:44 Okay, so, I'm actually working on a show where I think it's quite has a quite a religious undertone. So we say that that's one of the concepts that I find it hard, you know, all these like, prayers, like prayers like, oh, God, good, good Lord, and all these like, because I, I'm not religious at all. I'm a Buddhist. And so I have no concept of like what people say in the church at all.

Palm 00:23:06 So I have to like, go hard and like maybe sometimes even like go into, like some kind of Bible or any Bible like Thai Bible, which is hard to find online, actually. Really? Yeah, yeah. And it's also like I just, actually just took a class on translation. Yeah. And they, they said that, sometimes it can be sensitive to the you should be sensitive to like the different sets of, of Christianity basically. So basically. So for example, the word for prey in Thai is swordsman. Okay. Say the mantra, but you cannot use that word when you're translating from prayer from English. But let's say, for example, if the Catholic was doing the prayer, you cannot use that word because Catholic would be like, we don't do swordsman.

Greg 00:23:48 We don't say a mantra. We have a conversation with God.

Palm 00:23:51 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They will say or something and it will. It can raise some problems.

Palm 00:23:58 Yeah. So we have to be mindful of that and all these, like, you know, by the grace of God and like, good Lord and all this, I'm like, by the grace of God.

Palm 00:24:06 Like what? Like, I don't know what that means.

Palm 00:24:09 So. Yeah. Yeah. And which is. Yeah. And also like slang. Definitely in drag, drag queens. And that's like drag queens. Like gays.

Greg 00:24:19 Yeah. Really? Yeah. Like what?

Palm 00:24:20 Guys? Like, sometimes it can be. Are you familiar with RuPaul's Drag Race?

Greg 00:24:25 I know of RuPaul.

Palm 00:24:27 Yeah, but, like, you can never, like, all, like, I would say 50% of what they're saying on the show. You cannot take it at face value. They take it literal meaning. Oh, yeah. So, for example, if you say if like someone say they you are beating for the God, you are beating for the god, beaten, beaten. Like it doesn't mean like you were saying, like, oh, is he, like, injured or something? No, it just means that your face is like, so, like, painted.

Palm 00:24:55 So well made up.

Greg 00:24:57 Wow. I don't even know what that means in English.

Palm 00:24:58 Yeah. Yeah. I was like, how? At first, when I first heard that, you were like, Like you're eating for the gods. Like, why?

Greg 00:25:07 And that would be hard to look up to because.

Greg 00:25:09 When you go, like, it's not like RuPaul has.

Palm 00:25:11 But actually, like, right now there's like a with the popularity of, of the show, they're actually a drag slang dictionary online right now.

Greg 00:25:20 Yeah. Well, it must be handy to have.

Palm 00:25:21 Oh, so all these words is, like, so hard to to translate in Thai then. And you have to be taking they keep in mind the characters of these of the people who are saying it, you know, you cannot just say, oh, you are building for the gods. So they know, like it doesn't like convey the meaning, convey the character. Right, right. Yeah. So you have to, like, be very sensitive about.

Greg 00:25:44 When you get together with other translator friends, when you talk about your business, what do you talk about? Like, oh, my God, I had this job the other day or.

Palm 00:25:54 Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like we just usually we just talk about like the difficulties. Yeah. The difficulties of translating certain words. We just ask each other. No, actually, I ask my friends all the time because I have, I have like I do have some group of translator friends. Yeah. And we just like, how can you use this? Like, what would people get it if you use these words or like, what if the two to offensive or something.

Greg 00:26:19 Right. Do you have like a backup farang gang that you can contact?

Palm 00:26:22 No. My boyfriend.

Greg 00:26:25 Maybe your boyfriend. Oh, here's another question about yeah, yeah, Jimmy Carr.

Palm 00:26:29 But most of the time he doesn't know anything either.

Greg 00:26:31 Well, does he say something like for the gods?

Palm 00:26:33 I have no idea what that would mean. Yeah, yeah.

Greg 00:26:35 My wife sometimes asks me things like that too. What does this mean? And I was like, well, I don't know. Read the sentence I need context. I need what else they're talking about, right. It's not.

Palm 00:26:44 Exactly. Or sometimes, you know, even like words like slay, I come to slay. You know, it's not like slay, as in, like you are gonna kill anyone I come to like I come to when I come to, like, kill like all of you in terms of, like, winning. So, yeah, it's like I have to, like, not use the word win. I have to use, like, certain word that would imply winning, but also a slang in Thai.

Greg 00:27:07 Okay. Interesting. okay. Well, as we're finishing up here, is there anything else you want to talk about? Is there any concepts or behind the scenes peaks that you want people to understand about translation work?

Palm 00:27:17 Okay.

Palm 00:27:18 I would say that most people think that, by being bilingual or being there, just knowing the language, it means that you all can ultimately be a translator. I would say that is definitely not the case. No, because I see another time that, like people who might be fluent in both languages, in languages they might not be able to translate well, you know, because like what you think you know, in your head, like, but when you like, translate it, when you put it out there for people to, to, to, to read, to listen to whatever. Yeah, people might not get it. So I would say like translating is like not just a language skill is a skill that you hone. Basically you just have to read a lot. You have to like be very pay attention to the to the language used everywhere. Yeah. So like it's not just a skill that, oh I know language. I can just open it, open up a dictionary and just like translate.

Palm 00:28:05 No.

Greg 00:28:06 Yeah. Interesting. Interesting.

Greg 00:28:08 Yeah. And I totally understand that because, you know, sometimes I hear things like, why don't you. Well, you're married to a tie. Why don't you tie. What is your wife just teach you Thai like it doesn't work. Yeah, because I asked something like, well, how come in this sentence, the high class consonant has a rising tone, but you actually say a low tone? She's like, I don't know, that's just the way it is. Yeah, exactly. And it's the same with English. You know, like my students asking me the difference between struts. Swagger. Sidle and saunter. Like, if I had a smoke bomb, I would have thrown it on the ground and jumped out the window. I don't know. I'm not trained to answer that, I don't know. That's just my answer would be. Well, that's just how it is.

Greg 00:28:43 So but teaching or translating is a skill, and just because you know two languages doesn't mean you can just.

Palm 00:28:49 Definitely.


Greg 00:28:51 All right, well, to wrap things up here, I'm going to throw you a curveball. There's a very famous line from a very famous movie by a very famous rip wrestler named Rowdy Roddy Piper. I want to see if you can translate this.

Palm 00:29:07 Wow.

Greg 00:29:08 I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm fresh out of bubble gum.

Palm 00:29:13 Oh my God. That is definitely a curveball.

Greg 00:29:18 Because it's not just talking about the intent, there's perfection, the threat, the swagger of it.

Palm 00:29:25 All. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's the curveball.

Greg 00:29:29 Yeah, it's a good example of how you have to really put some thought into it. It's not as easy as just replacing the words.

Palm 00:29:34 Right. And also like I get paid five bucks an hour. Five bucks a minute. So yeah.

Greg 00:29:39 Get my wallet here and see what I can get up.

Greg 00:29:41 Oh, sorry. I'm fresh out of my.

Greg 00:29:43 I'll send you some prompt, pay money and maybe we can get back on another episode. Palm, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was really interesting.

Palm 00:29:49 Thank you so much for having me and having fun.

Greg 00:29:51 Yeah. Next time anyone our audience out there? If you're reading Thai subtitles or English subtitles, have a think about how much work goes into it. It's not something that anyone can do. So. Yeah. All right, well, maybe we'll have you on again some time. We'll talk about some more translation issues and maybe some Thai language issues. We can chat. Thanks a lot.

Palm 00:30:08 Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Ed 00:30:21 Wow I really enjoyed that. You know, I mean, you and I both find Thai language both, frustrating and fascinating. And, hearing it from someone else's perspective. In other words, she's got a totally different problem and job than we have. And, it's just a cool it's a cool little job.

Ed 00:30:40 I love people who have unique professions.

Greg 00:30:44 Yeah, yeah. Me too. And this is one of the things this is kind of a side rant, but I wish that my high school counselors, you know, I don't know about you, but when I was in high school, you go to the counselors and like, oh, what should I do with my life? And they're like, oh, lawyer, accountant, doctor. You know, they never said like, there's there's a whole ton of really interesting jobs out there, right? you know, so, I think, I think it's really cool. And it was really interesting hearing some of the difficulties she has with stuff that we take for granted, like these slangs and urban slang. Oh, I sympathize. Hip hop movie or something.

Ed 00:31:13 I sympathize. it must be impossible to figure out the right way. I mean, I mean, you guys, you guys capture it really well, but you have, like, the meaning and the context, and it's just got to have the right feeling.

Ed 00:31:24 It's got to be, like, contextually appropriate. It's a tough job.

Greg 00:31:29 Yeah. I still remember my students coming up to me one time and asking me to explain the difference between go up the street and go down the street. And I was like, well, they're kind of the same thing. And they're like, but up and down are diametrically opposed. I'm like, leave me alone.

Ed 00:31:41 Right, right, right.

Greg 00:31:43 So it was really interesting, and I thought it was a really cool sort of alternate angle on the traditional Thai language stuff we talk about. So thanks for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. And maybe we'll have her back again sometime to talk about it.

Ed 00:31:54 Yeah, that would be.

Greg 00:31:55 Great because yeah, it was really, really cool. All right, let's get into some love, loathe or live with where one of us surprises the other one with a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we then discuss and decide if it's something we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept it as just part of the crazy tapestry of Bangkok, otherwise known as tit.

Greg 00:32:15 This is Thailand, which I explained to a couple of Thai friends today. They'd never heard that before. Oh, really? Classic. Yeah.

Ed 00:32:21 I learned that, early upon arrival and I still use it. I use it with my students.

Greg 00:32:26 Yeah, yeah. It's great. This is Thailand. What are you going to do? All right. This week, it's, It's your man. Your turn. Man.

Ed 00:32:31 All right, I got something for you. Very simple, very straightforward. but I'm curious what you have to say. Greg, what do you think about the the plethora of Thai holidays?

Greg 00:32:45 Ooh, this is an interesting one. This is an interesting one, because I really think it depends on what you do. Now, now and now. I love them because I get paid a monthly salary, so I don't get paid hourly. my salary is the same no matter how many days I work a month. So the more Thai holidays that my company is forced to to to give me, not as a holiday.

Greg 00:33:08 Like bring them on, I love them. Right, right, right. but when I was teaching back in the day, when I was teaching, I hated them because it severely limited the number of hours you got with your students, which affected the tests, which affected their test results, which affected, you know, your reputation and the views of your boss, the people who run the school. So when I was teaching, I thought Thailand had like way too many holidays, especially around December. But, Now love love, love, love.

Ed 00:33:37 I get it, I get it. I'm. You know, I'm glad you remember your time as a teacher because you completely captured it, like you remembered accurately. My job has made a lot more difficult by the fact that there's just. It's not even just that there's a large number of fixed tie holidays. There's also a fairly large number of semi arbitrary things that like pop up now and then like, you know, we talked about the royal barge procession.

Ed 00:34:03 I just got an email that my university is closing for five days around the royal barge procession.

Greg 00:34:10 Five days.

Ed 00:34:11 Five days the week. Wow. We're closed for the week. And you know, and then the email just says contact us for like make up makeup times. And I'm like, how do I make up a week of class? Yeah. You know, that's rough. yeah. And it's just, I mean, I in my case, I mean, I don't want to go into how my salary works. Like, I do have a base salary, but then I do make more money when I teach more, like, over a certain number of hours. So in my case, it's not even just. It is true that I can't finish the course material because of all the holidays. So I kind of I'm like like you. It's just like, I feel like I can't get through the required number, like the just the standard stuff and the amount of time I have, but in my case, it actually does.

Ed 00:34:58 It does actually affect how much I get paid. because I'm, I always try to maximize how much I can teach. These holidays actually do cut into what I make. So in general, I think Thailand, I think Thailand has too many holidays. But it's not even just that. It's that they seem semi arbitrary and they they seem to change Frequently, you know, it's like. It's like you always have to check the calendar. Like, where's this holiday this year? Or how long is it going to be this time?

Greg 00:35:25 Right, right, right. Yeah. So I would say I love them as a salaried office worker, I love them. But as a teacher, I probably would have been right on the border between loathe and live with.

Ed 00:35:36 Yeah. I'm going, I'm going. Loathe.

Greg 00:35:37 All right. Well fair enough because that's that's your that's your main gig.

Ed 00:35:40 That's my world.

Greg 00:35:41 Yeah, I, I can see man, when it when it cuts into your like, like an entire week suddenly like out of the blue, like, by the way, there's a week gone.

Ed 00:35:47 Yeah. Seriously, in a month. In one month, I just, you know, I just got the news, you know, that we're we're shut down for a week.

Greg 00:35:55 Well, if you want to, grab lunch or something, let me know. You got nothing else to do.

Ed 00:35:59 That's right, that's right. Okay, before we wrap up, I'd like to give a special thanks to all of our lovely patrons. As you know, we don't run ads or have sponsors, so we really, really do appreciate the support we get from our patrons. If you want to learn more, just head to Bangkok Podcast. Com Slash sport, and if you want to get in touch with us, it's easy See Bangkok podcast on social media. Bangkok podcast. Com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We are very polite and if you write, we will answer to that.

Greg 00:36:27 And if you also find each episode on YouTube and you can also follow us online, where we post each episode and carry on conversations with our listeners.

Greg 00:36:35 You can also reach out to me directly on Twitter if you want where I am VK Greg. So thanks for listening everyone, and we'll see you back here next week.

Ed 00:36:42 Yep. See you next week. And I'm Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract almost 19 years ago. Actually, wait, that's not right. It is actually 19 years because we're past August. What am I saying? Okay, let me do that again. It's almost exactly it's almost exactly 19 years now.