English for Thai speakers has been added! :-)
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Looks like this important Asian language will soon be available for us to learn (after they reverse it, of course)! Thanks Duolingo for your awesomeness! http://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/en/th/status
I'd also like to thank the contributors fluffyby and praer for being moderators!
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Senlando, thanks for announcing the course! :D I think you found out before I did!! ;)
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If being nice means having to tolerate unconstructive comments, then I can't be one. I have my limit. Really, we did our best to complete the last portion of the course, thanks so much to Song. The last part was the User Interface that was supposed to be taken care of by DL.
We really appreciate the kind words from you guys.
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There are about 60 UI strings left which I absolutely have no idea what or where they are. All arrows for localization turn green now.
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Uh oh, I just remembered that Duolingo has added some new UI strings.
For example, https://www.duolingo.com/courses/ta displays "Language Courses for Tamil Speakers" when I'm taking Spanish for English speakers, "Cursos de idiomas para hablantes de Tamil" when I'm taking Catalan for Spanish speakers, etc.
Someone at Duolingo may have forgot to add them to the list of strings to localize. :(
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Just wanted to add my thanks for all your hard work! It does look like Beta really is just round the corner now - I can only imagine the hard work its taken to get this far.
I promise to take a peek and to be patient for the reverse course I am hope is being planned. I know from reading about the progress of the Hindi for English speakers course however that it is even tougher the other way.
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What hard work? Are you being sarcastic? Snuffly Bunny does not like sarcasm.
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important Asian language will soon be available for us to learn .
. lovely
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We have found 3 alpha testers who will run the alpha version before this gets released as beta. There are probably things that need to be fine tuned based on their comments.
The team and I appreciate all kind words that have been left here and on our walls.
I hope you don't mind me asking a quick question hear - I was hoping to translate the word 'Welcome' into Thai for a sign in our non-profit's waiting room. And I wanted to check the translation with a native-speaker to make sure I'm getting the best phrase. Do you think "การเชิญ" would be appropriate? or is there a better Thai phrase I could use to let people know they are welcome in our offices? thank you!! Please feel free to reach me at jayackley@gmail.com
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Agreed that it's worth checking with a native Thai-speaker first, and/or assessing what similar organisations use for their signs.
Not being a native-speaker, but a student of the language for 10 years, I can only offer you my perspective from those experiences.
"เชิญ" tends to get used when you politely offer someone to do something. E.g. "เชิญนั่ง" = "Please sit" (e.g. politely telling a guest that has arrive in your home that they are welcome to sit down).
I have seen "เชิญ" used in another context, for when a guest has arrived at the front door, the host greets them and then says "เชิญ (นะครับ/ค่ะ)" extending their hand out to guide the guest inside. In this context "เชิญ" is equating to "Please come in".
So I can see why you might consider "เชิน" an option. My only point of hesitation is that I see this style of เชิญ used in spoken form, not in written form. Also, the person has already made a decision to come in, and the host is merely softening/sweetening the entrance :-)
The term you were considering "การเชิญ" equates more to "invitation" and doesn't seem appropriate.
I recall seeing entrance signage with the phrase "ยินดีต้อนรับ", which equates to "Welcome!" (to our establishment), that might be suitable.
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"ยินดีต้อนรับ", translates to "Welcome", as in welcoming guests into the room/place/club/etc. "เชิญ" is more like "please ....", for example เชิญนั่ง is "please sit" or เชิญเข้า is "please enter". I'm a native Thai :)
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Well, a year later, and English for Thai is still not finished (current E.T. is September 2). So maybe if we add a few more months to get out of bata and then a year we might get it sometime in 2017?
On the bright side, Thai is a lot quicker than Romanian.
Yes I know they are volunteers so I'm not complaining. I'm thankful but I just hate waiting for Christmas gifts. :-)
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Yes same, I appreciate their efforts immensely. There definitely isn't anything out at the moment that looks like it teaches Thai as effortlessly as Duolingo teaches languages.
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Super! I'll definitely try Thai for English when it come out! Congrats fluffyby and praer!
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Wow, so when somebody today asked when DuoLingo will be adding some new courses soon and Luis responded "very soon" we could've taken his answer very literally... Perfect! And all the props to the new team, I'm sure they'll create an outstanding course =)
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I note that the comments on this list are from months and years ago. Thai for English speakers, where is it? Where is English for Thai speakers?
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I don't know what has caused them to get stuck, but the ETA for English for Thai speakers has been a crawling date, between 1 week and 1 month ahead.
Several months ago, via the pages to apply to collaborate, I wrote to the team offering assistance of various types, including personally paying some people here in Bangkok to do/review translations or even developer time. I never heard from them.
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j3greene: as you say, the date goes back and back. I also wrote to Duolingo several months ago saying my Thai is not good but I have a native speaker assistant - who wants English for Thais. I can write materials in English, which the course developers can translate. I asked if in the next section they expect to teach in English only - and kick the crutch of translation. Now retired, I taught English as a Foreign Language and computer skills for many years. By now, I am also familiar with Duolingo exercises and feel I can improve on some of the materials I have seen. I live in Bangkok.
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I've been checking this every month or so for a year. The estimated date is always between 2 days and a month from when I check. Date just keeps moving back. Wish I could help somehow.
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I have sexperience of trying to organise a bunch of volunteers in social and library work. At times, it can seem hopeless when people do not fulfil their commitments and no one is responsible for anything. Is anyone responsible for this course? Does he/she have a name? Can he/she tells us what is wrong and how volunteers can help?
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Here's an updated chart of all the Duolingo language pairs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkCL0-6HjU18dHNSNGpJM2hIM1pUY1RJRHpETERJRkE&usp=sharing
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Words have been completed. The only thing lacking now is some of UI strings. Previously we had been translating them, but Duolingo engaged a third party company who specializes in doing interface translation to do it. We are not sure as to why it is not completed.
Is there anyway for me to help get this resolved? How do i contact you or duolingo?
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If you go to my profile page, you will be able to see a Facebook icon. Click on it and you'll see my profile, feel free to drop me a private message.
I'm actually requesting a DL team member to get in touch with me about this too. Very perplexed.
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Are the UI translations the last step before the course is ready to go?
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Hope Thai for English speakers will soon be available or maybe Loatian
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Awesome, this is another language I'm interested in learning , I speak only one word and I don't even know how to write it! =)
Good luck prear and fluffyby!
Awesome! Best of luck. Keep up the hard work--I had so much fun learning Thai for the year and half I lived in BKK. I think it's fantastic to provide a free resource like this. Know that this can truly change people's lives :)
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Once we finish the English for Thai speakers course, we hope to start working on the Thai for English speakers course too! :)
Hope you had a good time in BKK! I'm a Bangkokian actually ^^
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Is there any rough estimation when the thai for english speakers course can be released? You guys are doing such a great job for so many people worldwide!
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This is great! As an EFL teacher in Thailand, I am glad to have this new resource. Also, a Duolingo program for Thai is much desired.
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I'm in Thailand again. I've taught English here before and hope to teach again. Duolingo would be a great resource in teaching English.
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Do you speak Lao too? Or just Thai and English? I would love to see a Lao course on Duolingo, as well as Thai. :P
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Hmm... I can speak Laos. But not very good at it (I'm not a native speaker.) I don't know if I could help.
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I'm very excited for this course, and I'm willing to help to make this course a great one!
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Maybe too late for some of us. That's Thai efficiency for you.
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Really cool! I wish there was Thai for English speakers though, but I'm really glad for this :D
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Hello everyone. Thank you so much for all the hard work. Any news on a date for Thai For English speakers yet?
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Just wanted to say thank you to the contributors who have been working so hard on this course. I'm really excited to start learning Thai whenever it's released. I know I have a while to go. Hoping that the UI strings can soon be completed and then the reverse course begun.
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I do speak basic Thai but would like to improve it. Loking forward to a Thai - English course.
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I've a Thai wife and plan maybe to retire to Thailand when I retire from Nursing
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fluffyby wrote on English for Thai speakers has been added! :-): You might want to feedback this to Duolingo. All words have been completed, short of interface strings which were supposed to be done by a company engaged by them. Being sarcastic doesn't help.
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Firstly, thanks for your efforts on preparing the course. I am working my way through the course at present and I had some initial feedback posted here. Just thought I'd better cross-reference here just to make sure it doesn't slip off your radar :):
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22664949
As I mention in the post there, I would be happy to help out on this course in whatever way my skillset permits, whether it makes use of my coding skills (I've been at it for 30 years), or Thai skills (gave it some solid study over a span of 10 years), if I'm deemed worthy :) I did apply via the duolingo online form method a week or two ago, but didn't receive a response on that front as yet.
Well, while I was waiting, I thought I'd at least try contribute providing answers on the English-Thai forums, as there were plenty of questions going un-answered there, and it seemed like a good way to start contributing something and demonstrating my style, nature and approach, in the hope that the powers-that-be get a better measure of who I am, my capabilities and limitations.
I did notice in the "English for Thais" forum posts here:
https://www.duolingo.com/topic/945/sent
There were many Thai users mentioning issues regarding them typing in the thai sentence answer correctly (letter-for-letter) and the app still reporting their answer as being incorrect. This hasn't happened to me personally (I'm using the android app version and that's been behaving fine), but the number of users reporting this seemed alarming, so I thought it'd be worth mentioning here. I'm not sure why it's failing for them, is it specific to the iOS version of the app? Or the web-version? Is it some sort of unicode versus ascii encoding discrepancy? I'm not sure, I feel like asking around and doing a few tests myself to see if I can replicate their problems.
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Oh, I think one user finally mentioned a hint as to why their answer got marked wrong when he they typed it right:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23316454
They mention that they noticed a discrepancy between the positioning of the mai-tho tone marker between the app's answer and their answer, in its use within the word "น้ำตาล".
I then noticed that multiple people were complaining about typing an answer in correctly in this thread:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23327865
Interestingly, the sentence in question contains the term "น้ำ" too.
So I wonder if that's a common denominator for this issue. Could the issue possibly relate specifically to the online version of duolingo, and upon how the user chooses to type the word "น้ำ".
I guess there are two ways of going about it:
- Type น then ้ then ำ
- Type น then ำ then ้
Perhaps even though the visuals of the final outputted string might look the same, I wonder if the underlying data string differs, so when the user's text is compared with that typed by the course creator, it can still differ in the binary-data sense, hence be marked wrong? Anyway, just a possible reason I'm speculating on...
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I mentioned further possible issues people are having with words like "หนึ่ง" too here:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22664949
- ห น ึ ่ ง
- ห น ่ ึ ง
Just wanted to keep myself on the radar again, as it's been about a month since my application to contribute and I didn't hear anything back. Also, it still feels like the forums still have many questions going unanswered.
I'm still happy to chip in with the forum posts when and where I can, but I just worry that the project has gone cold for a while and is in need of some TLC. If the powers-that-be feel happy for me to chip in at the contributor level, I'd be happy to do that, if it's at the coding/debugging/testing/issue-raising level, I'd be happy to do that too, because the forum-posts mention various issues that multiple users are reporting that are probably worth jotting down and addressing, as time and resources permit (rather than that feedback stagnating in the forums).
Sorry for tooting myself this much, but well, perhaps having someone like me on this project could give it a good shot in the arm, just to bring it back to life a bit more :)
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Good work! Thank you so much fluffyby and digtake for this great work. My girl has started to play/learn it :) Krhob khun maak khrap ^^
Hi everyone. My wife just starting using Duolingo to learn English from Thai. Is this free? My wife is getting weird "waiting to charge" messages that do not allow her to move forward in the program. Any suggestions are appreciated!
My fiance cannot pass level two!!! She answered several questions correctly but the program kept saying she was wrong. This should be an easy fix. She is using the app on her iPhone. Can someone help?
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Many users (including myself) have mentioned a variety of problems with various q's on the english-thai forum. It's hard to know which problem you are facing without seeing the q you encountered. But at a guess, most newcomers to duolingo encounter this problem:
We answer a multiple choice question correctly but are marked wrong for it. We later realise that the app wanted us to select multiple answers (as several of them may be correct).
