Business Thai Digest: Feb 6, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Here are the new terms in the business Thai cheat sheet.
| English | Thai |
|---|---|
| Efficient | ประสิทธิภาพ |
| Propose | เสนอ |
| Responsible | รับผิดชอบ |
| Success | สำเร็จ |
I don’t have much to say about this week’s words, except that I have a suspicious feeling that Thai speakers use the word ประสิทธิภาพ (efficient) a little more often than English speakers. I’ve heard Thai speakers use that word when I would have said “quality” (คุณภาพ). However, I suspect this may be a characteristic of the individuals I know, or even confirmation bias in myself.
Entry Filed under: Business Thai. Tags: Business Thai, thai, thai language.
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Pierre | Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I have also noticed the apparent overlap in the use of the Thai words for the concepts of “quality” and “efficient”–however, I think we are confused by the way these words are used in terms of parts of speech in their respective languages. In English, “quality” is a noun, while “efficient” is an adjective. คุณภาพ is generally used as an adjective in Thai, but can also be a noun, as in มีคุณภาพ (“of quality”, or “having quality”). ประสิทธิภาพ is more rarely used as an adjective than its English counterpart, instead being used as an adverb, as in อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ (efficiently) or as a noun, as in มีประสิทธิภาพ “to have efficiency”, “to be efficient”. For example, ทำงานอย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ “to work efficiently” or “to work with efficiency” กระดาษที่มีคุณภาพสูง “high-quality paper”. In short, ประสิทธิภาพ can mean efficient, efficiently, or efficiency, depending on the context, though “efficiently” is probably the most common meaning.