That was just a demo of the functionality. Before I started recording the video, I already selected the main road from the suggestions (drop down). Suggested are all roads neighbouring to the road for which the question is asked.
But if I were to actually add the soi 48, I would have also selected the main road from the suggestions list and then corrected the name from thanon to soi 48 to save some time typing all the characters.
Just to add a bit more insight and confusion to the conversation is the situation in which the English translation of a Thai name makes no sense, for example, when a person’s name is part of the overall name of a place, or where the interpretation is very unclear. Two examples from a recent visit to Ang Thong will illustrate my point. A restaurant named เล็ก บ้าน รอ and a café named สี่ แยก ปากหวาน. (I’ve broken them into fragments for the discussion below but in Thai there are no spaces in them.)
Translating the restaurant name into English using the Thai-Romanization program gives Si Yaek Pakwan for a name:th-Latn while Google Translate gives “Pak Wan intersection”. Bear with me because now it gets very interesting. The first fragment, สี่, or “si”, translates to the number 4, so สี่แยก implies a particular type of intersection, one where four streets connect. My Thai wife tells me pak wan (ปากหวาน) means “sweet mouth” and is also a common Thai expression for “sweet talk”. Putting only “ปากหวาน” into G-T gives “seductive”. So, for a name:en tag a non-Thai speaker is left with the choices of 1) Sweet Talk Intersection Café, 2) Sweet Mouth Intersection Café, or 3) Seductive Intersection Café. Or perhaps instead of “intersection”, the owner meant “corner” as we sometimes see in English, e.g., Coffee Corner.
The เล็กบ้านรอ restaurant (which is an excellent one, by the way) is translated into “Lek Ban Ro” by the Thai Romanization program and into “Small house waiting” by G-T. This is ridiculous, right? In Thai, Lek (เล็ก) is a common man’s name and it also means “small” while “บ้าน” or ban means house or town. I’m guessing the name of the restaurant in English could begin with something along the lines of Lek’s House but the last part, รอ, means simply “wait”. Two Thai people I asked have no idea what the name might actually mean except for agreeing that the owner’s name is probably Lek.
I think in cases like these, it might be best to either not use a name:en translation, which I cannot agree with, or else to duplicate what the Thai Romanization program provides in both the name:th-Latn and name:en tags, which is extra work for zero gain. I’ve always used the RTGS transliteration program to obtain the name:en unless it’s quite clear what the English name is.
We can certainly substitute the word “road” for “thanon” and “river” for “mae nam” but going beyond that is fraught with problems for English speakers. In many, perhaps most, cases it might be best to not even attempt a translation. And that means we’re back to square one and I’ll have to agree with Russ that, except in certain limited cases, this is a waste of time. I spent many minutes fiddling around with just these two names, trying to come up with something reasonable to put into those two tags. I returned from my trip to Ang Thong with hundreds of drive-by photos of POIs. If I have to spend 5 minutes just trying to determine a reasonable English equivalent for each of those names, I might as well stop mapping in Thailand.
Cheers,
Dave
Important rule: Never translate “proper names” (as the linguistics term).
This is often considered insulting. I noticed some people talking about “Stefan Küste”, when they gossip about Steve Coast.
For me, it helps to “speak out” the name in a sentence. So let’s met at the “Lek Ban Ro” restaurant (for ร้านอาหารเล็กบ้านรอ).
For names obvisously using English words (in Thai script) I use the proper English word again in name:en.
Example of a convenient place we stayed during a road-trip: “ปลายฟ้า รีสอร์ท”, for this I used “Resort”, instead of “Riso”.
Names are complicated.
As the initial question was about street names, it is a little bit easier here I hope.
What about other quests, like “What is the name of this place?”. Here we end up in the situation outlined above…