Positive As Opposed To Question.

[chaamguy]

Please forgive me for not writing in Thai(I'm watching football and my eyes aren't what they used to be.)

How do I work this out?

Kwaam payayarm yuu thi naai. Kwaam samret you thi nan.

In English the saying is: Where there is effort. There is success.

The Thai appears to ask the question: Where is the effort?

Am I missing something?

Tony.

[RobertRoth]

Please forgive me for not writing in Thai(I'm watching football and my eyes aren't what they used to be.)

How do I work this out?

Kwaam payayarm yuu thi naai. Kwaam samret you thi nan.

In English the saying is: Where there is effort. There is success.

The Thai appears to ask the question: Where is the effort?

Am I missing something?

Tony.

I think it'll be "Where is the effort? The succes is there" like you said..

To express "Where the effort is, there is success" personally I would guess:

"Mee kwaam samret tae tee kwam payayam keuy ma" (Success only exists where effort has been)

..or maybe

"Nai tee kwam payayam yuu, kwam samret yuu (duay) " (Where the effort is, success also is)

.. But I'm absolutly not sure, because I don't know if you can build the sentence like this in thai.. I'd guess it'd be something totally different, but expressing the same meaning... Over to the experts!

[Jay_Jay]

This is one of those stock standard structures in Thai (that get used so much, sentences that are built with it start sounding a bit cliche)..

Where there's ____ there's _____

___ อยู่ที่ไหน ____ อยู่ที่นั่น

ที่ไหน (ti nai) isn't a question - 'nai' is just an interrogative particle 'which'(哪), when attached to 'ti' (place), means where. In these kind of structures, it might be confusing to think of 'nai' as 'where' - think of it as 'so ever' or 'which ever' or 'what ever' or 'any'. You can actually extend all the 'wh' equivalent question words out like this and use them in the positive or the negative.

อันไหน (an nai - which thing)--> อะไร (arai - what)

คนไหน (khon nai - which person)--> ใคร (khrai - who)

อย่างไหน (yang nai - which type / manner(様)) -> อย่างไร (yangrai - how) --> (spoken) อย่างไง (yang ngai) --> ยังไง (yangai)(spoken - you'll see this written on web-boards and in chatting) / ไง (ngai)

so now sentences like

ไม่มีใคร (mai mee khrai)

can be extended out to

ไม่มีคนไหน (mai mee khon nai) - there isn't any person ... rather than thinking of it as 'there isn't who' (this structure has confused many of my students in the beginning)

OR

ไม่มีอะไร - ไม่มีอันไหน - there isn't any thing = nothing

So back to the structure

น้ำตาลอยู่ที่ไหน (nam tan yoo thee nai = whatever place / any place that there is sugar)

มดอยู่ที่นั่น (mot yoo thi nan = Ants will be in that place)

Sorry the response has been this long ... I receive questions every week about the use of ไหน, so thought I'd finally put my 2 cents worth in on a posting.

[DavidHouston]

ความพยายามอยู่ที่ไหน ความสำเร็จอยู่ที่นั่น

Where there is effort, there is success.

This is a perfectly good Thai grammatical structure stated just like it is. There is no implied question. In English we have the same distinction of using “where” as an adverb (Where is the book?) and “where” as a conjunction ( . . . the town where she lives.)

More colloquially in English we might say, “Where there is a will, there is a way.”

[MrHerb]

Thanks for the explanation Jay-Jay,

I was puzzled with a similar thing from a line in a Loso song, ในช่วงเวลาที่ต้องการใคร.

So I think here that ใคร means someone/anyone, not who ?

Thanks and regards,

Herbie.

[meadish_sweetball]

Yes, exactly.

[Johpa]

Please forgive me for not writing in Thai(I'm watching football and my eyes aren't what they used to be.)

How do I work this out?

Kwaam payayarm yuu thi naai. Kwaam samret you thi nan.

In English the saying is: Where there is effort. There is success.

The Thai appears to ask the question: Where is the effort?

Am I missing something?

Tony.

A bit akin to the difference in English between the interrogative "where" and the adverb "wherever". Bring both to the head of the phrase and you get in English either the question "where is the effort?" or "wherever the effort". In Thai it is the context that changes the syntax, often called poetic license in the vernacular.

[chaamguy]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

I really liked: Where there is a will, there is a way.

Cheers.