Thai - English free online translation ?

Does anyone know if of any online Thai - English translation website that is quick, easy and free to use ??

There is of course google translate but it is next to useless and whilst you certainly get a load of words back they almost certainly have never translated what the Thai person was trying to communicate - and vice versa to them when they are trying to translating English back to Thai - surely there must be a better at least half reasonable site out there that does this - anyone any suggestions ?

[cdnmatt]

Probably not what you're looking for, but I use this quite often:

http://www.thai-language.com/dict/search

Only does words though, not phrases or sentences.

EDIT: It's somewhat a pain though, as there will be multiple Thai words for each English word, so you have to go down the list until you find one the Thai recognizes. That, and unless the Thais I know don't speak Thai properly, it's just simply wrong sometimes.

[ceejay]

You could try Babylon. I have only used it a little, but what it produces is understandable. Whether it is accurate or not is another matter - I have to take that on trust.
http://translation.babylon.com/thai/to-english/

[anonone]

Probably not what you're looking for, but I use this quite often:

http://www.thai-language.com/dict/search

Only does words though, not phrases or sentences.

EDIT: It's somewhat a pain though, as there will be multiple Thai words for each English word, so you have to go down the list until you find one the Thai recognizes. That, and unless the Thais I know don't speak Thai properly, it's just simply wrong sometimes.

This one is a pretty good website overall for Thai-English. If you do some digging into the category section, there are many complete sentences written out in Thai, which can be useful for email communication.

Example: http://www.thai-language.com/id/590127

A lot depends on the purpose you are trying to translate. For conversation (in-person), some of the iPhone apps are useful for a quick translation of an unknown word.

As most everyone quickly realizes, trying to use a website or app to translate complete sentences is not very accurate. You can sometimes get across the basics of the thought, but it is open to misunderstanding.

[cdnmatt]

As most everyone quickly realizes, trying to use a website or app to translate complete sentences is not very accurate. You can sometimes get across the basics of the thought, but it is open to misunderstanding.

Yeah, alot of them are also very "book correct". So for example, you'll end up saying, "I am going to go for a swim later today. Did you want to come?", versus normal conversion like, "going for a swim later, wanna come?".

So you get all these words and phrases in your mind, then get out actually talking to Thais, and realize they don't talk anything like that at all.

[francois]

Yeah, alot of them are also very "book correct". So for example, you'll end up saying, "I am going to go for a swim later today. Did you want to come?"

Should it not be "Do you want to come?"