Thai translation agency

Specialised Thai translation agency

As a Dutch-Thai translation agency, we provide various translations of all kinds of documents on a daily basis. These are always carefully translated by one of our Thai native-speaker translators. Not only are we specialised in translations from Dutch into Thai, other language combinations such as Spanish to Thai and French to Thai are also commonplace at our Dutch-Thai translation agency. Many of our existing as well as new Thai clients, such as government authorities, international companies and private individuals, need urgent translations of documents like a diploma, deed, passport or cover letter from or into Thai. We, as the leading translation agency of The Hague, offer you and our regular clients our fixed competitive rates, without a so-called ‘rush fee’.

As a Thai translation agency, we believe not only that our sworn translators must meet strict admission criteria, but also that any translator – Dutch into Thai or vice versa, regardless of whether they are sworn – must have completed higher education in translation and have demonstrable experience.

Because we carefully select the Thai translator based on your document, you are assured of a completely accurate translation. Since we fully stand behind the quality of our translations, we also warrant the correctness of your translation. If you are not satisfied with your Thai translation, we will give you a full refund. Every text is unique, therefore we look carefully at the type of text for every translation assignment. As Thai translation agency, we take it as a matter of fact that we assign a native speaker translator, who is experienced in your jargon, to your translation. This means that we will never assign a technical translator to a legal document. This ensures that you can rely on a good translation from Thai into Dutch.

About the Thai language

In 1283, King Ramkamhaeng introduced the Thai written language. Since the introduction of the language, only a few minor changes have been made. This means that even in modernity, people can still read the ‘old’ Thai. Today’s written language has 44 consonants, 15 vowel sounds (forming at least 28 vowels) and 4 accents. In Thai, writing is read from left to right, and texts contain few white spaces. In fact, no spaces are used; blank spaces are only used to indicate the end of a sentence. Contrary to Dutch (and many other languages), Thai does not use capital letters, punctuation and articles. In addition, Thai also does not use finite forms.

In Thai, a word can have multiple meanings. It then depends on how the word is pronounced. The pronunciation can give a word a completely different meaning in Thai. This is because it is a tonal language. The language has 5 different pitches, including high, low and neutral. In Dutch, we adjust the tone to indicate a question is being asked, by means of an inflection at the end of a sentence. When someone does this in Thai, the meaning of the sentence immediately changes in terms of content. It is not that the sentence then still has somewhat of the same meaning – it can change completely when the tone is mispronounced.

Relationship to other languages.

Thai is related to several languages, including Lao, the language spoken in Laos. It is also related to a major minority language in China, Zhuang. And although the Thai language is not related to Cambodian, there are some similarities between the two languages. Someone who has learned Thai will certainly be able to recognise similarities between the two languages.

The capital of Thailand – Bangkok – is not actually called Bangkok at all. We call it that, but the city’s official name is a tad longer, namely ‘Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit’. This makes the name one of the longest place names in the world. The people of Thailand usually refer to the city as ‘Krung Thep’. Bangkok officially became the capital of Thailand in 1782. Until 1863, it had not a single paved road. Residents did everything via boats. Parts of canals were eventually closed up and turned into paved roads so that people could travel by bicycle. The bicycle was chosen at that time, as it was a trend in Europe.