Localization vs translation: Thai examples of the difference

The gap is easiest to see on a real market. Thailand makes a good example, because Thai differs from English in script, grammar, calendar, and manners all at once.

Every cell in the middle column is a correct translation. The right-hand column is what a Thai company would have written in the first place. The greeting gains a title and a polite particle, the year moves to the Buddhist Era, and the price is one somebody set in baht. The button uses the verb Thai shops use. Land is measured in rai, and the customer is sent to LINE or the phone.

• Language and register. The words, and how polite, formal, or playful they are.
• Formats. Dates, numbers, currency, addresses, phone numbers, and units of measure.
• Names and titles. How a person is addressed in a greeting, on a form, and on an invoice.
• Layout. Line length, line breaks, fonts, and the room a script needs.
• Examples and images. The people, places, holidays, and references a reader recognizes.
• Payment and contact. The ways people in the market pay, and the channels they use to ask a question.
• Legal text. Terms, privacy notices, and disclosures that a local lawyer has read.

Translation covers the first item. The rest are decisions somebody has to make before or after the words change.

Politeness is part of the grammar#

English can write a neutral sentence, and Thai cannot. Every Thai sentence picks a level of formality through its pronouns and its closing particles, and the particles differ for a male and a female speaker. A brand has to decide how it speaks, and to whom, before the first line is translated. Translating into Thai at the right level of politeness goes through the choices.

The year is 543 years ahead#

Thailand counts years in the Buddhist Era, and 2026 is 2569. Receipts, contracts, and government forms print the Thai year, while software often stores the international one. A localized product shows the year its reader expects, and it says which calendar it means wherever the two could be confused.

Borrowed words have more than one spelling#

Thai borrows English words freely, and many of them have an official spelling, a newspaper spelling, and a chat spelling. A brand name can stay in Latin letters or be written in Thai script. Either choice works, and mixing the two across one product is what readers notice. The checking guide has a table of common cases.

Lines break between words that have no spaces#

Thai is written without spaces between words. A browser or an app has to know where the words are before it can wrap a line, and a system without Thai support breaks a word in half. Thai also stacks vowels and tone marks above and below the line, and a tight line height clips them. Test every screen with real Thai text. The word segmentation guide explains the mechanics.

People are addressed by given name, with a title#

Thais use given names in daily and business life, with the title คุณ in front. A greeting built around an English surname produces a line no Thai would write. A form needs the given name first, and a salutation needs the title.

Idioms and jokes stay behind#

An easy task is a piece of cake in English. The Thai phrase for the same idea is ปอกกล้วยเข้าปาก, peeling a banana into your mouth. A translator who knows both swaps one for the other. A literal rendering leaves the reader wondering where the cake came from.

Slogans, ad headlines, and campaign names are written again from the brief by a copywriter in the market. The trade calls this transcreation, and it is priced as creative work.

Most of a product is a different kind of text. Help articles, product listings, interface text, and support replies carry facts, and they change every week. Machine translation with a clear brief and a human check does this work well, and waiting days for each update is hard to justify.

Legal documents sit apart. A contract or an official filing may need a certified human translation, and the translation cost guide covers what that costs.

A human translator and a translation model fail the same way when nobody tells them who the reader is. A one-page brief fixes most of it.

1. 01Name the reader and the registerState who reads the text and how the brand speaks to them. In the Translate tool this is the Register setting, with Formal and Casual.
2. 02List your termsGive the Thai rendering you want for each product term. The Glossary holds the pairs and applies them every time.
3. 03Protect what must stay as writtenBrand names, product codes, and legal names go under Keep as written and come back untouched.
4. 04Decide on borrowed wordsChoose whether English loanwords are written in Thai script or kept in the original, and hold that choice across the product.
5. 05Give the contextSay where the text appears, such as a checkout button, a push notification, or a help article. Add a character limit where space is tight.
6. 06Show an approved exampleTwo or three lines of Thai copy the brand has already signed off are worth more than a paragraph of instructions.

The Translate tool takes each part of that brief as a setting. Paxa Translate Lite translates into Thai from 14 source languages you can name, or detects the language itself. It also marks a result that deserves a second look, such as a glossary term that went missing.

Paxa Translate Lite is priced by the character, and a request is billed at two rates.

A standard page of 1,800 characters costs 45 credits to translate, which is $0.05. A new account's 100 free credits translate about 2 pages, and the pricing page lists the plans.

What do l10n and i18n mean?#

Both are abbreviations. L10n is localization, with ten letters between the l and the n. I18n is internationalization, the engineering work that lets a product show any language, date format, and currency without a rewrite. Internationalization comes first, and localization follows for each market.

Can the Translate tool translate out of Thai?#

Paxa Translate Lite translates into Thai only. Text going from Thai into another language needs a different service.

• The register is chosen, with the brand's pronouns and particles written down.
• A glossary of product terms is agreed, with one spelling for each borrowed word.
• Dates show the Buddhist Era wherever a Thai reader expects it.
• Prices are set in baht.
• Greetings and forms use given names with a title.
• Every screen has been checked with real Thai text for broken lines and clipped marks.
• A Thai reader has read the main pages from start to finish.
• A Thai lawyer has reviewed the terms and the privacy text.

• Paste a paragraph into the Translate tool and set the register.
• Read what machine translation into Thai gets wrong for a review a team without a Thai reader can run.
• See how e-commerce, support, travel, and games and apps teams translate into Thai.