Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

2202124  Introduction to Translation

News (Thai-English) Test 1 Discussion

Test 1

Translate the following into Thai.  (20 points)

10 killed, thousands flee as cyclone hits Pakistan coast

Quetta, Pakistan – Ten people drowned and thousands fled to higher ground Tuesday as a tropical cyclone lashed Pakistan's coastline with heavy rains and high winds, officials said.

Navy ships rescued 75 people from four sinking vessels and were searching for more boats caught in the rough seas with the help of helicopters, said Navy spokesman Salman Ali.

Cyclone Yemyin hit parts of the coastline of Baluchistan province at about noon with winds of up to 91 kilometers an hour, said the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

Rain-swollen rivers flooded several coastal districts, killing at least 10 people.  Floods washed away some bridges and part of the main coastal highway, causing lengthy traffic delays.  Relief efforts were hampered with roads and telephone lines severed in nine districts of the province.  Warnings of coastal flooding prompted many to flee in panic.  People from several small towns nearby loaded possessions onto camels or into cars and headed for the hills.

Officials said the storm's intensity was decreasing and would subside by the end of the week.

Reference

• 10 killed as cyclone hits Pakistan (text with "listen to article" option, machine-read but might be useful for individual word pronunciation check)

• tropical cyclone – พายุไซโคลนเขตร้อน (ศัพท์อุตุนิยมวิทยา)

• Country Profile: สาธารณรัฐอิสลามปากีสถาน (Islamic Republic of Pakistan)

• About Pakistan (Note that the province is given as Balochistan on the government website rather than Baluchistan as is in the news story.)

Quetta

• pronounced "kwatah"

• pronounced KWEH-tah

• Kwatta as pronounced locally

• hear the word pronounced in Urdu: quetta

• entry in Britannica

• Introduction

Balochistan

• Map (administrative divisions)

Discussion

with

Does not mean พร้อมกับ here.

a tropical cyclone lashed Pakistan's coastline with heavy rains and high winds

Navy ships were searching for more boats caught in the rough seas with the help of helicopters

Relief efforts were hampered with roads and telephone lines severed

parts of

Relief efforts were hampered with roads and telephone lines severed in nine districts of the province.

This sentence gave several people problems:

• unknown words: hamper, sever

• passive voice

Tackling the problems:

• unknown vocabulary: Ask yourself, what part of speech is the word? Look at the context to guess the meaning.

• Break down the sentence into manageable chunks.

  Pared down to a simple sentence, it becomes:

  Efforts were hampered.

  noun (plural) + verb (passive voice, past simple tense)

Then we can include information that modifies the noun and the verb:

What kind of efforts? Relief efforts.

How were the relief efforts hampered? They were hampered because roads and telephone lines in nine districts were "cut."

end of the week v. weekend

Vocabulary

flee (v.) – 

cyclone (n.) – พายุไซโคลน

tropical cyclone (n.) – พายุหมุนเขตร้อน พายุไซโคลนเขตร้อน (ศัพท์อุตุนิยมวิทยา)

coast (n.) – 

coastline (n.) – 

coastal (adj.) –

navy (adj.) – 

vessel (n.) (Merriam-Webster)

1 a: a container (as a cask, bottle, kettle, cup, or bowl) for holding something b: a person into whom some quality (as grace) is infused <a child of light, a true vessel of the Lord — H. J. Laski>

2: a watercraft bigger than a rowboat; especially: ship

3 a: a tube or canal (as an artery) in which a body fluid is contained and conveyed or circulated b: a conducting tube in the xylem of a vascular plant formed by the fusion and loss of end walls of a series of cells

rough (adj.) – แรง

rough seas – ทะเลซึ่งมีคลื่นจัด

hit (v.) – ถล่ม

up to – ถึง มากถึง สูงถึง

sever (v.) – 

hamper (v.) – 

panic (n.) – 

prompt (v.) – 

load (v.) – 

possession (n.) – 

ข้าวของ

ของ

สัมภาระ

ทรัพย์สิน

head (v.) – 

• hills (n.) – เขา

  1: a usually rounded natural elevation of land lower than a mountain 

  2: an artificial heap or mound (as of earth) 

  3: several seeds or plants planted in a group rather than a row 

  4: slope , incline (Merriam-Webster)

• head for the hills (v.) – flee; take to one's heels; cut and run

  The expression "head for the hills" used here plays the usual sense of "flee" against the literal meaning of actually moving up onto hills or to higher ground.

subside (v.) – 

Links

Cyclone kills 10; thousands flee in Pakistan (story with pictures)

Cyclone hits Pak, 10 killed

10 killed and thousands flee as cyclone hits coast (brief version)

ปรากฏการณ์ของอากาศ

Similar News

Source

10 killed as cyclone hits Pakistan

The Associated Press
Published: June 26, 2007

QUETTA, Pakistan: Ten people drowned and thousands fled to higher ground Tuesday as a tropical cyclone made landfall in Pakistan, bringing heavy rains and strong winds, officials said.

At least three small boats were reported to have sunk and 18 fishing boats were missing as the Pakistani Navy sent a warship and two helicopters to scour the rough seas in search of vessels caught in the storm.

Cyclone Yemyin hit parts of the coastline of Baluchistan Province with winds of up to about 90 kilometers, or 55 miles, an hour, Qamaruz Zaman, director general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, said.

Rain-swollen rivers flooded several coastal districts, killing at least ten people, including four children, said Raziq Bugti, spokesman for the provincial government.

Spillways were opened to release the water pressure on two dangerously full dams, he said.

Officials said the storm's intensity was decreasing and was expected to subside by Tuesday evening, but not before dumping heavy rains that could last through the night.

Located on the same Arabian Sea coastline, Karachi, the largest Pakistani city, was hit by torrential rains and thunderstorms, which killed at least 228 people Saturday.

Rains and flooding also killed 38 people over the weekend in neighboring India, raising the death toll to 129 since the monsoon season set in four weeks ago, according to official reports.

In Pakistan, warnings of coastal flooding prompted many to flee in panic.

Most of the 120,000 residents of the southwestern port city of Gwadar have moved to higher ground, Mayor Abdul Ghaffar Hoth said.

People from several smaller towns nearby loaded possessions onto camels or into cars and headed for the hills, he said.

"We have imposed an emergency in the district and asked the army and other forces to be on alert," Hoth said.

Off the coast, one boat with 13 crew aboard was rescued by the navy as it was sinking while the search continued for at least three others, two of which reportedly sank, Lieutenant Mohammed Shahzad, spokesman for the Maritime Security Agency, said.

In Karachi, the city authorities were trying to repair power cables snapped by the storm, which have caused widespread power outages.

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Last updated December 17, 2008