Property developers with lots of money but minimal sense
I’m usually not keen on poking fun at Thinglish for the sake of it, but in the world of real estate and high-end hospitality, where multi-million baht firms are trying to sell hotel rooms, condos and houses, specifically to foreigners, there really is no excuse for not paying someone with half a brain a couple of thousand baht to read over ad copy.
Picture the scene: On the drive from Kathu to Patong, there is a large hill. Almost at the foot of the hill, there is an enormous billboard, from a company I won’t name and shame, that reads:
Every our steps serve your lifestyle
This is a needless massacring of the English language because those billboards, as well as the product this particular company is selling, are bloody expensive.
I have no problem with small restaurants or guesthouses using odd spelling and grammar, but when companies worth millions of dollars can’t come up with a simple sentence, it makes you wonder where else they’ve cut corners and costs.
Writing ad copy for property developers and hotels is one of the most boring jobs in the world, but even one of the English-language teachers bumbling about on Yaowarat Rd could come up with something better than “Every our steps serve your lifestyle”.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
It could be - of course- a trick, or management method if you like. First of all these mistakes attract attention. See, even you write about it.
Secondly, it could be to mislead the farang customer. It could create the impression that the selling party is not a big, farang oriented one, so maybe a cheaper one.
And one can understand what they are trying to tell you. So…
April 20th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Haha well nothing beats the sign at a barber in thonglor i once saw.
They’re offering hair-drying services for men. The sign reads.
“Blow Man - B50.”
April 20th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
PeterS: I don’t think this is on purpose as Property Developers usually want to look like large and professional companies.
LB: imagine the situation for us, non “english mother tongue” speakers, we end up speaking like this…
April 21st, 2008 at 12:44 am
PeterS hi. It isn’t a shrewd cleverness that causes these linguistic faux pas. It is simple incompetence, Thais are noted for being lazy and incompetent and this is the inevitable consequence.
Bedwyr
April 21st, 2008 at 3:56 am
Poor English being used as a sales ploy - that’s a new one.
I honestly think these mistakes - and I see MANY of them myself - are because the Thai people who write them think their English is perfect and doesn’t need any input from a native writer.That would be extreme loss of face, especially if the writer has spend time studying overseas which is usually the case.
Matt - I think you should name and shame. I did that on my blog a while back with one particularly bad example. Again this was a preperty developer.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:58 am
I do fear the wrath of 1,000 sales girls coming down on me again, though haha.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:28 am
Well, as a developer myself I fully agree with Vanalli. I have seen this all over the world and find it quite frustrating as I used to proof read and know that it is very cheap. What amazes me is that so many of the people massacring the English language are native English speakers.
When we are looking for ideas for slogans etc we bounce everything around between the partners numerous times to make sure anything we use makes good sense.
Of course there will always be typos and things that get past spell check but that can be made minimal by multiple people checking everything.
Our website is siamdevelopments.com please feel free to go there and see if you can find any thing that glares at you as a mistake and contact me on anttommo@gmail.com. Also check out the Ebrochure as I know there is one mistake that was spell check oversight. This was pointed out to me by a very good friend and made me laugh (as the alternative was cry).
April 21st, 2008 at 5:40 am
I will only start to take the piss of Thinglish when my Thai is perfect. You know - “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”… if you go round the corner from the temple in Patong there’s a place that proudly proclaims “We Spik English”.. I was going to do a blog piece on laughable signs such as that, but should in fact hang my head in shame that my Thai is crap after living here 8 years. I blame my wife as her English is too good.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:43 am
I am convinced it is another case of “Thai face-saving syndrome”. During my first visit to Thailand, I purchased some condos from a major Thai developer. The contract was rife with spelling and grammatical errors. I entered the entire contract into my word processor and re-wrote it for them. I also pointed out all of the errors in their market materials. I sincerely thought I was being kind in providing them free help, and even offered to continue helping them in the future provided they offered me a discount.
In retrospect, I now understand the so-called “kindness and thankfulness” returned to me for my favors was most likely a “f-you you friggin’ farang!” in disguise.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:20 am
I should have taken a picture of it, too. Next trip.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
The thing is that if you spend millions on advertising you need to make sure it’s right. We have Thai advertising in our company and I make sure it’s proofed by Thai native journalists.I don’t think it’s a case of poking fun at anyone - it’s about professionalism. I am the first to admit I cannot read Thai which is why I get help.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
@ jamie monk: I don’t agree with you. Your Thai is probably bad but you don’t try to write advertising in Thai. If you had to, you would probably ask someone else.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:29 am
LOL. I have the same problem, been here 10 years and was learning a bit of Thai till I met my GF 8 years ago who speaks great English and I got lazy. If she’s not with me and I need Thai I just call her and hand over the phone. On a positive note though it has served to always improve her English which I feel is very important as Thailand is not the be all and end all and we may well end up living elsewhere and it will be great for her to be able to cope without my help. Once again me being lazy.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Ahem - Matt - on your blog:
“Comments For This Post Topic Was Disable By Author”
:)
April 25th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Oops. Should see to that.