Which Level Are You At? Ploy, the Interpreter of Mae Sot
One story · four scenes · 24 gaps · grammar in context, from a border hospital to an international forum on language rights
How it works. Read the story from the beginning. At each numbered gap, choose the word or phrase that fits the meaning of the story, not just the sentence. The scenes become harder as the story goes on. Answer every gap you can, then press See My Level.
อ่านเรื่องตั้งแต่ต้นจนจบ เลือกคำที่เข้ากับ ความหมายของเรื่อง ไม่ใช่แค่ประโยคเดียว ฉากหลัง ๆ จะยากขึ้นตามลำดับ ทำให้ครบแล้วกด See My Level เพื่อดูระดับและคำอธิบายทุกข้อ
Scene 1 · A Voice Between Two Languages
Level band 1 · Beginning–Low Intermediate (A1–A2)Ploy twenty-two years old. She two younger brothers, and her family lives Mae Sot, near the border with Myanmar. Ploy speaks Thai, Burmese and English.
“What you do?” a visitor asks her. “I translate for patients and at the hospital,” she says. One morning a frightened mother cannot explain what is wrong with her baby. “Don’t worry. I help you,” Ploy tells her.
Scene 2 · The Hospital’s First Interpreter
Level band 2 · Intermediate (B1)Last year Ploy as the hospital’s first official interpreter, and she has worked there a year now. The words she finds hardest are medical terms. Doctors sometimes worry that patients misunderstand their instructions.
One afternoon a doctor asked her more slowly so that an elderly patient could follow. When the patient finally understood his treatment, he was grateful that he cried.
Scene 3 · Ploy’s Letter to the Provincial Health Office
Level band 3 · High Intermediate (B2)Dear Director,
Last month a patient almost took the wrong dose of a medicine. Without an interpreter, the misunderstanding serious harm. I wish hospitals interpreters as a luxury; for many patients, we are the only bridge to safe care. Every patient I work has the right to understand their own treatment.
Since 2024, more than 3,000 consultations with my help. It is therefore essential that every border hospital trained interpreters. Despite formal training in medicine, I have learned thousands of medical terms on the job, but no one should have to learn this way.
Respectfully,
Ploy Saengthong
Scene 4 · A Forum on Language Rights
Level band 4 · Advanced (C1)Twelve years later, Ploy spoke at an international forum on language rights in health care.
“When I started work at that small hospital, that the young interpreter would one day speak at a forum like this. Interpreters trained to the same standard as other health professionals. a patient misunderstand a diagnosis, the consequences can be fatal.
skilled a doctor may be, communication fails without a shared language. It is not words we translate, but meanings, fears and hopes. for interpreters, millions of migrants would remain invisible in our health systems.”
| Level band | Correct | Result |
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