English hunted down and killed

You’re not going to find “The Hunger Games”, “Catching Fire” and “Mocking Jay” in the bookstores, though – they’re all sold out. And that goes for the Thai translations too.

Thai fans hungering for the novels might be lucky, however, in the sense that the copies available so far have allegedly been shoddy translations, according to online critics. 

The three books were translated into Thai by someone named Nathan (no, not Nathan Oman) and the flaws have been dissected line by line and word by word at Pantip.com by contributor “mototoji”.

Not only is Suzanne Collins’ gift for prose lost, so is the meaning of her words. “Game” is taken to mean the hunt rather than the animal being hunted, for example. Elsewhere someone is “looking for me” instead of “looking out for me”. 

A fuming mototoji alerted the local publisher in January and some corrections were made, but the stacks of the novels sold at this month’s book fair still bore Nathan’s name and many of the same errors. So now the publisher has decided to hire a new translator. Revised editions are expected to hit the shelves sometime in autumn. 

Meanwhile, buck up and buy the e-book versions in English.

 

Bonding news

Actor Nattawut “Por” Sakidjai keeps folks giggling with his funny interviews and tweets, and now he’s sent out invitations to his wedding that are pretty hilarious too.

Por designed the invitation card like a sensational tabloid newspaper. It’s called Sakidjai News and carries the big headline in Thai, “Confirmed, marrying on May 18”. 

The lead story (the only story, of course) is about his and Pornthip “Ae” wongkijjanont’s big day at the Shangri-La Hotel, where the dress code will be “Dress to kill, no compromise”. The theme is “temple fair”, so it should also be a lot of fun.