matts89 wrote:Hey everyone! I finally got connected so I can contribute a little more myself. I am the original poster. First let me tell everyone I've really enjoyed following along with all the responses and I appreciate the time you all have spent discussing this. Although I couldn't respond, I did still do some checking up on my own with a few Thai friends I have. Here's where I'm at:
So I’ve been back and forth with a few thai friends I have discussing the quote and its translation. The best progress I’ve made was with a female friend of mine who works as condo salesperson in Thailand. Without her knowing what I was trying to translate from english, I simply sent her the text that another Thai friend had given me (from the original post here) and asked if she could explain it to me in English as her English was very good.
Here’s that text again: การใช้ชีวิตจริงๆนั้นเพิ่งจะเริ่มต้นเมื่อคุณเริ่มก้าวออกจากเขต ที่สะดวกสบายของคุณ [edited]
Here’s word for word what she returned to me: “It mean you will know what is live really when you start step out of you convenient live and start to live without any desire.”
With some of the common grammar issues that most English learners have, she seems to have conveyed to me the same meaning I interpret when I read “life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” The ‘live without any desire’ part threw me a little but she seems to have clearly understood the concept in Thai that I would like. She also assured me “Thai people will understand” which I took to mean any typical Thai person would read the above Thai and interpret it similarly. I also double checked with her that her explanation was coming directly from her and not google translate or similar translation app.
When I sent her the English equivalent, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone” she was quick to reply, “yeah that’s it, same.”
But from following along with this forum, it seems that the 'comfort zone' concept in English seems to be the biggest concern as far as how it's translated into Thai due to cultural differences. But when she was able to explain to me the idea it conveyed in English by only seeing the Thai, it seems to have gotten the message across. For what it's worth, I can translate the same quote into Spanish (which I'm more much competent with than Thai) and the meaning is easily understood, as far as the 'comfort zone' concept so I suppose it's just a matter of confirming how the majority of Thais would interpret the idea of a comfort zone??
So is what my Thai friend has given me as a translation already acceptable? Are there different/better ways to say it? I'm looking forward to being more involved now that Im connected here.
Any thoughts? Thanks a lot to everybody!!!
Matt
My thoughts are that you should have taken more note of to "live without desire" because I think it shows that no translation can be made without context. All words are metaphors dependent on context for meaning. Even nouns; 'dog', doesn't always mean 'dog'. "It is a dog's life." If you are looking at a soi dog's situation, then dog means dog, but if you are talking about your circumstances? So how do you translate it? You need only to substitute the words and let the translator imagine a context.
You say that your friend sees it exactly as you see it, how do you see 'life' in this context? Is it a life without desire?
We can substitute English for Thai;
การใช้ชีวิตจริงๆนั้นเพิ่งจะเริ่มต้นเมื่อคุณเริ่มก้าวออกจากเขต ที่สะดวกสบายของคุณ This genuine living thing will start when you begin to step out of the zone of yours which is convenient and comfortable.
It appears to be a criticism, for some people criticism can only come from an authority like religion, one fault in Buddhism is "desire", so I guess that with no other context, out pops that word. However did the original translator see 'life' in the original English from a Buddhist point of view?
Better to answer the
ที่ question.
ที่ is fashion, in this case a pronoun for
เขต which is itself a metaphor for a way of life (
ใช้ชีวิตอยางใด ) step out of your comfortable convenient life (
ก้าวออกจากชีวิตอย่างสกวกสบาย.
ของคุณ).
I think that where people feel that the modifying words can't be directly applied to the noun then
ที is used to mask the fact.
สดวก is an adverb,
สบาย is an adjective.
All that is BS really, Thai is just as flexible as any other language I think, especially when they get mixed together. The secret is not to take them too seriously because 'face to face' or 'in context' it hardly matters what words are used.
Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 1:26 am