ศาลาชุมนุม

[Tgeezer]

To get to the meaning of
"กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ ๕ ของคนไทยไปแล้ว สำหรับโทรศัพท์มือถือแบบ 'สมาร์ตโฟน' เรียกว่าทุกวันนี้แทบจะมีกันทุกคน ตั้งแต่เด็กเล็กไปจนถึงคนเฒ่าคนแก่ แถมยังได้รับความนิยมมากขึ้นเรื่อย ๆ เพราะแต่ละรุ่นพัฒนาเทคโนโลยีมากขึ้น สวนทางกับราคาที่ยิ่งต่ำลง ๆ"
one needs to have some knowledge of the collocation in Thai as well as the different styles of composition. Then in translation, one also needs to reproduce the meaning of the text that one gets in another language.

This is just to say that when one doesn't understand the gist of a piece of text, one tends to translate it literally. Doing so means that some particular meanings or connotations expressed or implied in the text are not included; otherwise, some particular meanings or connotations are slightly altered.

Thanks for that Pirin but it doesn't solve our problems. As learners we would like to be able to compose a piece of Thai text for ourselves so the "collocation' of words has to agree with their meaning and role in a sentence.

In your translation you have made the topic the smart phone which in the Thai is introduced after the preposition สำหรับ which I understand shows that the following noun is one facet of the main topic. So where is that main topic?
กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ ๕ ของคนไทย since it comes first might as well come first in English.
" Changed into the fifth necessity of life for Thais. As for the 'smart phone'".

If the 'verb- กลายเป็น had a subject' The Internet', 'mobile phone network' or similar สำหรับ would make sense to me.
David has 'it' but what is 'it'?

The fact that there is no subject makes me wonder why the writer has put สำหรับ there.

I can accept that since this is a magazine article we shouldn't try to make sense of it but because it makes sense to you and the writer we need to try to fill that gap in our knowledge.

A separate question is: What do you see as the meaning of "เรียกว่า" ?

[David and Bui]

In English grammar sometimes "it" is used in an anticipatory sense, for example, "It's great to see you." http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/minor/it.htm

Thai seems to dispense with the anticipatory pronoun and begins with the verb. The Thai writer could have easily begun the sentence with the noun:

"โทรศัพท์มือถือแบบ 'สมาร์ตโฟน'. . . กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ ๕ ของคนไทยไปแล้ว"

Seems to me that the sort of construction used in the original sentence is roughly equivalent to the current English anticipatory, "Wait for it..."

I think that this is precisely the point that Khun Pirin is making when she writes:

"สมาร์ตโฟน' = the topic
โทรศัพท์มือถือ (+ ทุกวันนี้) = the adjective clause modifying 'สมาร์ตโฟน'
กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ ๕ ของคนไทยไปแล้ว = the first point the writer is making"

[Tgeezer]

In English grammar sometimes "it" is used in an anticipatory sense, for example, "It's great to see you." http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/minor/it.htm

Thai seems to dispense with the anticipatory pronoun and begins with the verb. The Thai writer could have easily begun the sentence with the noun:

"โทรศัพท์มือถือแบบ 'สมาร์ตโฟน'. . . กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ ๕ ของคนไทยไปแล้ว"

Seems to me that the sort of construction used in the original sentence is roughly equivalent to the current English anticipatory, "Wait for it..."

I think that this is precisely the point that Khun Pirin is making when she writes:

"สมาร์ตโฟน' = the topic
โทรศัพท์มือถือ (+ ทุกวันนี้) = the adjective clause modifying 'สมาร์ตโฟน'
กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ ๕ ของคนไทยไปแล้ว = the first point the writer is making"

I agree with this, the writer could have written: โทรศัพท์มือถือแบบ 'สมาร์ตโฟน'. . . กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ ๕ ของคนไทยไปแล้ว". "The "smart" version of the mobile phone has become the fifth necessity of life for Thais" I assumed that since you wrote "the sentence construction is eluding me " this was the problem.

That the writer chose to write: "(It) Has become the fifth necessity of life for Thais. Regarding the "smart phone..."

My problem is with the role of สำหรับ-and "Regarding" .
If the smart phone is the subject of กลายเป็น as in your 'it' why are we asked to consider 'it' when 'it' has already been established?

Here is a similar thought being expressed in another way:

http://www.telefact.org/author/admin/ - Translate this page
17 Mar 2015 - อย่าให้มือถือกลายบเป็นปัจจัยที่ห้าของชีวิต ... ถ้าจะเรียกว่าโทรศัพท์มือถือหรือสมาร์ทโฟน กลายเป็นปัจจัยที่ 5 หรือปัจจัยที่ 6 ของชีวิตก็คงจะไม่ผิดจากความจริงไปสักเท่าไหร่แล้วนะ ... เมื่อสมาร์ทโฟนกลายเป็นอีกหนึ่งปัจจัยในชีวิตประจำวันของคนไทย ...

As I said before many things can be said to be indispensable and joked about as the latest necessity of life. Could it be that having established the predicate "become the fifth necessity of life" Thai needs to retain the verb even when 'the fifth necessity' (ปัจจัยที่ห้า) is what we would say in English. Is it possible that จตุปัจจัย is so established that ปัจจัยที่ห้า doesn't make sense without the validation กลายเป็น ?

The above version doesn't help in parsing the original, where เรียกว่า lacks a noun forcing you to translate เรียกว่า as "it is said" .

Incidentally I have just used the "translate this page' facility which shows that a much more disjointed effort than what we try for is acceptable.