Translation did not match subjects’ preconceptions
This is the third most frequent problem (13.76%), and two reasons for it were identified. The first reason is that the word provided did not match what the subjects were looking for in terms of meaning. This might imply that they had some possible words to choose in their minds but, when they saw the words which did not match their anticipations, they did not use any word provided and tried to use other strategies to solve the problem. For example, Subject A wanted to find the meaning of the word /hen doi/ (= v. to agree) but he could not find it. He then changed this word to /hen kuan/ (= v. to approve), and his electronic dictionary provided the following meanings: ‘v. to be worth, to deem it proper’. After that, he checked the word ‘worth’ in his dictionary and finally the dictionary provided the Thai meanings of this word as ‘kumka, meeka, meemulka’, which did not match what Subject A was looking for. He, therefore, gave up searching for this word and, for his essay, used another word, ‘sure’, which was not provided in the dictionary entry.