Setting Up A Foreign Purchased Garmin Nuvi 205 For Thai Use

[MaiChai]

Finally got round to sorting out Thai language on my oldish Nuvi 205 (the non wide 'w' version) that I bought in the UK. Have been using Thai and English maps on it for a couple of years but never got round to setting Thai language properly. Thought I would share the setup on TV.

Firstly this model and later models support Thai script/fonts natively. Thus if you install a Thai language map on it, you get Thai on the maps and can look at Thai Points of Interest (POIs). You can use multiple map files on the built in 2Gb flash disk (eg the English map and the Thai one), or you can use gmaptool to join both language files together into a single file. You can use filenames like gmapprom.img, gmapprom1.img, gmapsupp.img, etc, which live in the Garmin directory. I create a another directory on the root of the filesystem to keep spare maps, and juggle filenames around; I believe you can get a native app to do this for you. I prefer to have the Thai and English maps overlayed in one file. Your POIs are duplicated; one in Thai and one in English.

First thing to do is get the nuvi up to date with software. Get hold of Webupdater from Garmin, connect the device up to your PC using the USB cable and put the unit in USB disk mode. A drive then pops up in File Manager and the Webupdater tool should then be able to see the device. Get the device up to date, and if possible install Thai (or other Asian) voices and Text (Text is the menus, etc in other languages). I was able to add the Thai voice this way, so you get a nice sounding femail Thai giving voice directions in Thai. So thats the Thai language voice sorted.

After the webupdate, start the unit, and go into Tools->Settings->Language. See what Voice, Keyboard and Text languages are available. Probably just Voice has Thai?

If you don't have Thai voice, then you need to drop Thai__.vpm into the Garmin/Voice directory when the unit is hooked up to your PC and it shows up as a drive under File Manager. I attached this below.

Now we need the menus in Thai and a Thai keyboard so your other half can look for things in Thai (I can read and write Thai so its of benefit to me, but most will benefit their partners, etc). Text and Keyboard are based on having Thai*.gtt in the Garmin/Text directory of the unit. Actually the main file is Thai.gtt and this also has the keyboard layout, which I tweaked to have a better layout than the one I originally got. This file not only has the Thai keyboard layout, it also has the text for most of the menus and dialogs displayed on the unit. There are also two other files that provide other translations; ones for speed cameras etc, and the other is for live info (accidents, traffic, etc). Might as well drop those in as well. I attached these files.

Finally, I don't like the ABC keyboard layout for British English, so I redid the layout with a QWERTY layout. Later Garmin units let you choose between ABC and QWERTY, but not this one. I have attached this too. You might want to save your old file before over writing it (say in a directory you create on the root of the device).

So you will now have a unit that not only displays maps and POIs of interest in Thai, but it also has Thai menus and a Thai keyboard that allows you to find POI in Thai.

The only thing I could not get to work was the directions in Thai at the top of the map, and the junction view that is available for ERSI maps on the Thai Garmin units (even the 3900 baht cheapy Garmin unit has the junction view). So if you have a unit its worth doing the Thai tweaks, however if you are in the market for buying a GPS I would strongly recommend buying the Thai local Garmin units. I believe the junction view and directions issue could be fix with a firmware upgrade using a Thai or Sing/Malaysia version, but this could leave you with a bricked or unstable device. So I don't think its worth the risk; just go and buy a Thai unit if you really want these features!

Send me a PM if there is a problem with the instructions.

Give up trying to upload the small files required to enable Thai language; TV won't let me do it. You can get the small collection of xml files, etc from here: http://uploading.com...2Blanguage.zip/ Send me a PM if uploading is a pain to download from and I will put it elsewhere.

Edited February 21, 2012 by MaiChai

[lomatopo]

I took my Garmin Nuvi 1300 from the U.S.A. (it was free from a family member) to a shop in MBK on Saturday, where they added Thai voice, Thai menus, Thai keyboard, a gazillion Thailand POIs (I had already added TSM 12.1 dual so the maps show names in Thai or English.).

The spoken English driving directions here are sometimes funny, confusing, strange.

As far as I can determine no firmware was flashed; I've backed up all the files.

I see new files like

/keyboards/th_TH.kbd

/Voice/Thai_.vpm

/text/th_TH.glx

there may be more?

Edited February 27, 2012 by lomatopo

[NeeNoon]

On 2/27/2012 at 9:01 AM, lomatopo said:

I took my Garmin Nuvi 1300 from the U.S.A. (it was free from a family member) to a shop in MBK on Saturday, where they added Thai voice, Thai menus, Thai keyboard, a gazillion Thailand POIs (I had already added TSM 12.1 dual so the maps show names in Thai or English.).

The spoken English driving directions here are sometimes funny, confusing, strange.

As far as I can determine no firmware was flashed; I've backed up all the files.

I see new files like

/keyboards/th_TH.kbd

/Voice/Thai_.vpm

/text/th_TH.glx

there may be more?

Hi, do you remember the shop?  Where in MBK?  I have a Garmin Drive smart and Garmin Thailand said it can not support Thai language as it was not bought in Thailand...:(