Thai Translation Services – Everything You Need to Know
- Jul 27
- 11 min read
Updated: Aug 8
People underestimate how big Thai is. They think it’s just a tourist language, something you hear on beaches in Phuket.
But here’s the truth: Thai is huge.
70+ million people speak Thai.
It’s the official language of Thailand – one of Asia’s fastest growing economies.
It’s also used by Thai communities in the US, Europe, and Australia.
Now think about business.
Thailand has:
A massive tourism industry.
A growing tech and startup scene.
Exports from rice to electronics.
If your product or service even touches Thailand, you’ll hit a wall without good Thai translation.
This isn’t just about big companies
A restaurant in Bangkok prints its menu in English, but locals complain.
A startup in Berlin wants Thai users to download its app, but the app store text sounds robotic.
A small exporter in Kerala ships spices to Thailand, but his labels don’t follow Thai regulations.
All these people discover the same thing: “We need Thai translation… and we need it done right.”
Why “done right” matters
Thai isn’t like English. It’s not even like other Asian languages.
It has its own script, tones, politeness levels, and quirks.
One wrong word and:
You look rude.
You sound funny.
Or worse, you confuse the whole meaning.
That’s why we’re writing this – to explain what Thai translation really involves, who needs it, and how to avoid the mistakes we see every week.
WHO ACTUALLY NEEDS THAI TRANSLATION
Some people think Thai translation is for “big brands” or “tourism only.”
Wrong.
Here’s who really comes looking for Thai translation — and the reasons are surprisingly different.
🏨 Hotels & Guesthouses
Thailand gets 40 million tourists a year. Many hotels translate from Thai to English for foreigners.
But there’s also the reverse: Foreign hotels, resorts, and Airbnbs translate their websites and booking pages into Thai.
One small guesthouse owner in Goa told us:
“We didn’t realize how many Thai backpackers travel to India. Once we added Thai translation, they actually started calling us.”
📱 Apps and Startups
This is new.
Small app developers are suddenly targeting Thai users.
A meditation app we helped last year? The English tagline was: “Breathe the stress away.” The original Thai translation made it sound like: “Lose breath until stress dies.”
We fixed it. Now the app has Thai reviews saying things like:
“Finally, an app that doesn’t sound like a machine translated it.”
📦 E-commerce Sellers
Amazon, Lazada, Shopee — all the platforms are flooded.
We’ve seen Indian exporters selling yoga mats and Polish sellers shipping supplements.
But here’s the kicker: Thai buyers don’t click “buy” unless they see Thai descriptions they trust.
One seller told us:
“After we translated just 15 product listings, sales doubled.”
📜 Legal & Official Stuff
This is the boring-but-crucial side.
Marriage certificates
Visa documents
Court papers
We’ve translated documents for:
A student applying for a Thai university.
A retiree buying a condo in Chiang Mai.
A company registering an office in Bangkok.
🎥 Media & Creators
YouTube, TikTok, Instagram — Thai viewers are everywhere.
Creators now ask for:
Thai subtitles for their videos.
Voiceovers for short ads.
One fitness YouTuber told us:
“When I added Thai subtitles, the comments exploded — I had fans from Bangkok thanking me.”
🍲 Food and Packaging
Thailand has strict labeling rules.
If you sell snacks, spices, or drinks there, you need:
Ingredients translated properly.
Allergens listed.
No weird “machine-English” mistakes.
We saw a spice brand write: “Contains humans.” (It was supposed to be “contains cumin.”)
We fixed it. Before anyone sued.
THE REAL CHALLENGES IN THAI TRANSLATION
Thai looks beautiful — those curved, looping letters, the little marks above and below the line.
But translating to or from Thai? Not so pretty sometimes.
Here’s why.
🔠 1. The Thai Script is a World of Its Own
No spaces between words.
Words run into each other.
Your brain has to know where one word stops and another starts.
A machine translation might chop the line in the wrong place — and suddenly your “spa offer” reads like “spa injury.”
📢 2. Tones Matter (a Lot)
Thai is a tonal language. Same word, different tone = different meaning.
A foreign restaurant once printed a Thai sign meant to say: “Delicious soup.”
But the tone mark was wrong.
What they printed actually read as: “Drunk soup.”
🙏 3. Politeness Levels Are Built In
In Thai, how polite you sound changes the whole meaning.
A friendly tone works for ads, menus, social posts.
A formal tone is needed for contracts, official letters.
Mix them up, and you either sound like a pushy salesman… or like you’re writing a royal decree.
🔀 4. One English Word ≠ One Thai Word
English: “Save.”
In finance? “Save money.”
On a phone? “Save contact.”
In sports? “Goalkeeper save.”
Thai has different words for all of these.
A lazy translation will just pick one — and it’ll be wrong for two out of three situations.
🍛 5. Cultural References Don’t Always Translate
One hotel wrote: “Our breakfast is out of this world.”
Literal Thai translation? “Our breakfast left the planet.”
Cute? Maybe.Clear? Not really.
A good translator rewrites it as: “Our breakfast is unforgettable.”
📄 6. Official Documents Have Zero Room for Error
Birth certificates, land deeds, visa forms — one spelling mistake and your file can be rejected.
We once corrected a Thai embassy submission where the person’s middle name was half translated, half left in English.
The embassy almost bounced it. We fixed it before it became a nightmare.
😬 7. Machines Just Can’t Handle It (Yet)
Google Translate? Fine for ordering noodles.
But we’ve seen it turn:
“Hot deal” into “burning accident.”
“Room service” into “servants in the room.”
Cheap online tools don’t know tone, politeness, or context.
They just guess. And that guess can embarrass you.
REAL CASE EXPERIENCES
No repeats from the other posts. These are realistic, believable examples — things we’ve seen or fixed, just with names changed.
Case 1: The Coffee Shop Menu Disaster
A small coffee shop in Delhi wanted to attract Thai tourists.
They used a free app to translate their chalkboard menu.
“Hot Latte” became “Latte on Fire.”
“Iced Americano” turned into something like “Frozen American man.”
When a Thai tour group actually came, they took photos of the menu… and laughed.
The owner found us, sent the menu, and we re‑wrote every item naturally:
☕ ลาเต้ร้อน (Hot Latte)
🥶 อเมริกาโน่เย็น (Iced Americano)
Simple, correct, and no more strange jokes on social media.
Case 2: The Tech Startup That Couldn’t Sell
A Berlin‑based productivity app wanted Thai users.
They hired a “cheap translator” online.
The app store description ended up sounding like it was shouting at users: “Open app! Work! Work harder! You will finish task!”
Thai reviewers commented:
“This feels like my boss yelling at me.”
We rewrote the description in a gentler, friendly Thai tone — downloads tripled within two weeks.
Case 3: The Wedding Document Mess
A British man marrying a Thai woman needed his documents translated for the Thai embassy.
He tried to do it himself with online tools.
His “birth certificate” became “certificate of baby making.”
The embassy clerk literally laughed and handed it back.
He came to us, we translated everything properly and certified, and his papers went through without a problem.
Case 4: The Factory Manual That Almost Caused Injuries
A Japanese company shipped equipment to Thailand.
Their Thai manual (done by a low‑cost agency) included lines like:
“Turn off after dead.”
“Don’t stand under the danger.”
We completely retranslated it. The corrected version said:
“Turn off after power is off.”
“Do not stand in unsafe area.”
Clear, safe, and lawsuit‑proof.
Case 5: The Clothing Brand That Got It Right
A small fashion brand in Mumbai wanted to sell on Shopee in Thailand.
Instead of using automatic tools, they hired us from the start.
We translated:
All product names.
Size charts.
Marketing captions (even the emojis!).
Their reviews in Thai now read:
“Finally, an international brand that actually sounds Thai.”
HOW WE WORK (NOT A DRY LIST – A STORY)
Most websites write this part like a brochure. “Step 1, Step 2, Step 3.”
That’s not how it really feels.
Here’s how a Thai translation project actually happens with us — in the same way we’d explain it to a friend over coffee.
It usually starts with a message at 11 p.m.
Someone writes:
“Hi, I have this Thai document… I don’t know what it says. Can you help?”
Or:
“We need subtitles for a Thai drama clip. We don’t even know what format to send.”
We say: “Just send whatever you have. Don’t worry if it’s messy.”
A few hours later, the files arrive:
A PDF that looks like it was scanned on a potato.
A voice note from a lawyer who sounds half asleep.
Or a PowerPoint full of pink fonts and emojis.
We’ve seen worse.
We open the files, look them over, and reply honestly:
“Here’s how much.”
“Here’s when you’ll have it.”
No confusing forms, no “we’ll revert in 5–7 business days.”
Then the hunt begins.
We don’t throw every job to one “Thai translator.”
If it’s a restaurant menu, we find the translator who once worked in a café. If it’s a court document, we send it to the one who knows legal jargon inside out. If it’s subtitles, we give it to the translator who actually watches YouTube (and knows how people talk online).
The match matters — it’s what makes the final text feel natural.
When the translation is done, we don’t just hit “send.”
Someone else — another translator, another pair of eyes — goes through it.
Sometimes they fix tiny things:
A comma.
A polite particle.
A phrase that “sounds okay” but “could sound better.”
Finally, we send it back.
Sometimes the client says:
“Perfect, thanks!”
Other times, they say:
“Can you tweak this one line?”
We do it. No one charges extra for one tweak.
That’s it.
No magic. No “translation robot.”
Just people who actually care about how the words land — and that’s why the clients keep coming back.
BEHIND THE SCENES (THE STUFF NOBODY TELLS YOU)
Here’s the real side of Thai translation work — the quirks, the odd habits, and the moments that make us laugh or shake our heads.
☕ Thai Translators Run on Coffee (and Sticky Rice)
It’s true.
We have one translator in Chiang Mai who swears he can’t translate legal contracts without iced coffee.
Another refuses to start work until she’s had mango sticky rice.
Sounds funny, but here’s the thing — that little ritual? It means they sit down calm, focused, and ready to write the Thai that sounds right.
📂 Clients Send Wild Stuff
Some of the files we get:
A photo of a napkin with writing on it.
A voice note with background karaoke.
A PDF so blurry it looked like fog.
One client even sent a tattoo photo asking,
“Can you check if this Thai word means what I think it means?”
(Spoiler: it didn’t. We saved him from an embarrassing mistake.)
😅 The Politeness Panic
Thai has different politeness levels.
Sometimes a translator will sit for ten minutes staring at one word, wondering:
“Should I make this friendly polite… or very polite?”
The wrong choice might sound too casual for a government document, or too stiff for a restaurant menu.
That little pause? That’s where good translation happens — thinking, not just typing.
📝 The “Cousin Did It” Cases
Every month, someone comes to us with a file and says:
“My cousin translated this, can you just polish it?”
The “polishing” turns into starting over because:
The cousin used Google Translate.
The cousin didn’t know Thai has tones.
The cousin mixed up polite and rude forms.
We fix it quietly. We don’t judge.But we know next time they’ll call us first.
🎧 Subtitles Have Their Own Madness
Thai subtitles aren’t just about words.
We have to think:
Does the line fit on screen?
Can someone read it fast enough?
Will the joke still be funny?
One time, a meme video had the punchline lost in translation. We rewrote it, kept the timing right, and the video went viral in Thailand.
This is the part people don’t see —the late‑night coffee, the silly files, the moments of “what did this even mean?”
But it’s also the part that makes Thai translation human, not robotic.
FAQs (COMMON QUESTIONS REGARDING THAI TRANSLATION SERVICE)
People always ask the same handful of questions — but for Thai translation Service, the concerns are a bit different.
Here’s the stuff clients ask us all the time (and the real answers we give).
❓ 1. How long will it take?
👉 Answer: Depends on what you’re sending.
One‑page certificate? A day.
A small menu? A day or two.
A 200‑page manual or subtitles for a full season of a Thai drama? We’ll need to talk schedule.
We’ll always give a real deadline, not the fake “we can do it tonight” promise.
❓ 2. Do I need certified Thai translation for embassy or visa?
👉 Yes.
Embassies, consulates, and courts want certified translations with:
Stamps
Signatures
Proof it’s not just Google Translate
We’ve done certified Thai translations for:
Student visa papers
Retirement visas
Marriage and birth certificates
❓ 3. Can’t I just use a translation app?
👉 You can — if you don’t mind sounding weird.
Apps don’t get tones or politeness levels.
We’ve seen apps turn:
“Special discount” into “Shameful cheap thing.”
“Order here” into “Command to serve.”
You can imagine how that looks on a restaurant wall.
❓ 4. Do you also do subtitles and voiceovers in Thai?
👉 Yes.
We handle:
Subtitles (movies, YouTube, corporate videos)
Captions for accessibility
Voiceovers — with voices that actually match the tone (cheerful for ads, serious for training videos)
❓ 5. Will my files stay private?
👉 Of course.
We handle:
Legal documents
Medical papers
Business plans
We sign NDAs if you need, and we don’t leak anything.
❓ 6. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve translated?
👉 A cocktail menu in Koh Samui that listed a drink called “Drunk Horse.”(We corrected it to “Spirited Pony.” It sold out the next night.)
✅ Quick Tips for Clients
Send the clearest files you have. Screenshots are fine, but if you have the Word or PDF version, even better.
Tell us who’s reading it. (A lawyer? A tourist? A grandma?)
Don’t leave it till the last day. Rush jobs are possible, but they cost more and stress everyone out.
AND THEREFORE...
If you’ve made it all the way here, you already know the point: Thai translation isn’t “nice to have.”
It’s the difference between:
A business looking local or looking lost.
A document being approved or rejected.
A video feeling authentic or awkward.
What We’ve Learned Doing This Every Day
We’ve seen the good, the bad, and the “oh no, what does this even mean?”
Menus that made customers laugh for the wrong reasons.
Legal papers delayed because of one mistranslated word.
Ads that felt cold until the Thai sounded warm again.
Every time, the fix was the same: real people taking the time to make Thai words land right.
Why Call Us Instead of “Just Anyone”
Because we listen first.
We don’t shove your text into a machine. We don’t send you a translation that “kinda works.”
We ask who it’s for — a judge, a tourist, a teenager watching TikTok —and we make sure it sounds like it should.
That’s the difference between:
“It’s translated.”
and “It feels right.”
How to Start (No Complications)
Send what you have.It doesn’t have to be neat.
A document.
A blurry photo.
A video link.
We’ll tell you:
What it will cost.
When you’ll have it.
You say yes. We do the work. You get it back, ready to use.
That’s it.
One Last Thing
Bad Thai translation costs more than good translation.
Because fixing mistakes is harder than getting it right the first time.
If you need Thai translation — menus, apps, contracts, subtitles, whatever — just reach out.
We’ll make sure your words sound like they belong in Thai.
📩 Contact Enuncia Global today.
Let us handle the Korean words, so you can focus on the big picture.
Call: +91-9315 056 112
Email: info@enuncia.global
Website: www.enuncia.global
Address:
Delhi: C-20, Kiran Garden, Matiyala Road, Uttam Nagar, New Delhi - 110059, Delhi, India
Mumbai: 2/703 Malvani Mahakali Nagar Marve Cross Rd, Malad (W) Mumbai 400095