Thai to Lao Translation Quality

Since Thai and Lao are closely related languages, and grammatically very similar, word recognition and replacement can be used for translating documents from Thai to Lao, and the result will generally be understandable, if not the best way to express the source text in Lao. When a set of documents are translated, particularly on a technical subject, the Thai to Lao Add-In allows the user to rapidly build a dictionary of equivalent Lao words for each Thai word found in the documents, and use this dictionary to produce a much better result than simply using 'automatic' translation. Words not found in the dictionary will be transliterated on a syllable-by-syllable basis, which in most instances will be understandable in Lao.

Often, there will be several possible Lao words for a given Thai word, so to get the best result, the user should select the best choice word from the alternatives presented. Some final editing of the result is usually necessary, but typically only a few words for each page of translated material.

Literary and poetic works, of course, are not likely to be adequately translated by any machine translation approach.

A new Thai to Lao Add-In for Microsoft® Word which does not depend on LaoScript 8 is now available and is generally better and much faster than the Thai to Lao Add-In included in LaoScript 8. However, the above notes remain applicable.