With these free tools, Thai-speaking users can translate anything from whole websites down to single words. They can also use keywords to search for web pages and have the results automatically translated back into Thai. In addition, Thai-language website owners can get a gadget that will instantly translate their sites into 42 languages.

"We believe the Internet is about enabling access to information regardless of language," said Derek Callow, marketing manager for Google Southeast Asia. "Google Translate makes it easier for millions of Thai-speaking Internet users to search and access much more web content."

Just copy and paste

The service also allows users to suggest a better translation if they come across inaccurate translation.

Thai fans of South Korean entertainment -- especially TV series -- are sure to benefit from the new service as they'll now be able to keep up with all the news and gossip on their favourite stars. The same goes with fans of European football, who can get translations for any football club's website.

At http://translate.google.co.th, copy and paste the original text into the box labelled "Enter text or a webpage URL" and then select "Detect language" on the left-hand drop-down menu.

To translate the contents of an entire webpage, just paste the URL of the website into the same box. After a few seconds, your Thai translation should appear.