พอได้ก็ได้มาก

[taxexile]

พอได้ก็ได้มาก

por dai gor dai maak.

does this colloquial expression mean "it never rains but it pours" ?

[Neeranam]

พอได้ก็ได้มาก

por dai gor dai maak.

does this colloquial expression mean "it never rains but it pours" ?

I think that is a good translation.

I remember hearing it once when a guy had 3 sons but wanted a daughter - his wife had twin daughters.

[aanon]

พอได้ก็ได้มาก

por dai gor dai maak.

does this colloquial expression mean "it never rains but it pours" ?

I think that is a good translation.

I remember hearing it once when a guy had 3 sons but wanted a daughter - his wife had twin daughters.

sounds like a good translation to me too. in case anyone is wondering, it literally says "once i got (some), i got a lot".

all the best.

Edited February 22, 2008 by aanon

[taxexile]

thanks for those confirmations.

[tgeezer]

พอได้ก็ได้มาก

por dai gor dai maak.

does this colloquial expression mean "it never rains but it pours" ?

What it says to me is if you have sufficient you have a lot. Suffficient unto the day sort of feeling but maybe it means different things to different people.

[meadish_sweetball]

tgeezer, judging from your understanding of the phrase I think it is possible you have missed the separate meaning that พอ takes on in constructions like this - it means 'as soon as' or 'once' - not its usual meaning of 'enough' or 'sufficient'.

'phor dai' can mean 'enough/sufficient to get by' but not in this phrase.

To illustrate usage: 'phor thueng chiang mai, fon gor roem dtok' = Once/As soon as/When we arrived in Chiang Mai it started to rain.

I think aanon's close to literal explanation 'once i got (some), i got a lot' is spot on as an analysis of how the Thai phrase works grammatically. (Since the Thai phrase has no pronoun, the context dictates whether 'I/one/you/he/she/they' works best in the English translation...)

...so for that reason, 'When it rains it really pours' is an excellent translation.

[tgeezer]

tgeezer, judging from your understanding of the phrase I think it is possible you have missed the separate meaning that พอ takes on in constructions like this - it means 'as soon as' or 'once' - not its usual meaning of 'enough' or 'sufficient'.

'phor dai' can mean 'enough/sufficient to get by' but not in this phrase.

To illustrate usage: 'phor thueng chiang mai, fon gor roem dtok' = Once/As soon as/When we arrived in Chiang Mai it started to rain.

I think aanon's close to literal explanation 'once i got (some), i got a lot' is spot on as an analysis of how the Thai phrase works grammatically. (Since the Thai phrase has no pronoun, the context dictates whether 'I/one/you/he/she/they' works best in the English translation...)

...so for that reason, 'When it rains it really pours' is an excellent translation.

I see from my dictionary that พอไค้ is a คำวิเศษณ์ meaning พอใช้ได้บ้าง so an adjective? Given the pasting I got over interpreting หากิน can this be ignored? ได้มาก is easier verb and adverb. Ignoring that if it is possible to do, I feel that there must be some time involved to use พอ.....ก้.... I do think now that I've been pressed that it is not 'meaty' enough to do anything with and may be 'Thaigrit', has a Thai native speaker ever commented on it? What do you think? I understand 'It never rains but it pours' to mean, everything coming at once, usually used when you are overwhelmed with problems.

Edited February 25, 2008 by tgeezer

[tgeezer]

tgeezer, judging from your understanding of the phrase I think it is possible you have missed the separate meaning that พอ takes on in constructions like this - it means 'as soon as' or 'once' - not its usual meaning of 'enough' or 'sufficient'.

'phor dai' can mean 'enough/sufficient to get by' but not in this phrase.

To illustrate usage: 'phor thueng chiang mai, fon gor roem dtok' = Once/As soon as/When we arrived in Chiang Mai it started to rain.

I think aanon's close to literal explanation 'once i got (some), i got a lot' is spot on as an analysis of how the Thai phrase works grammatically. (Since the Thai phrase has no pronoun, the context dictates whether 'I/one/you/he/she/they' works best in the English translation...)

...so for that reason, 'When it rains it really pours' is an excellent translation.

I see from my dictionary that พอไค้ is a คำวิเศษณ์ meaning พอใช้ได้บ้าง so an adjective? Given the pasting I got over interpreting หากิน can this be ignored? ได้มาก is easier verb and adverb. Ignoring that if it is possible to do, I feel that there must be some time involved to use พอ.....ก้.... I do think now that I've been pressed that it is not 'meaty' enough to do anything with and may be 'Thaigrit', has a Thai native speaker ever commented on it? What do you think? I understand 'It never rains but it pours' to mean, everything coming at once, usually used when you are overwhelmed with problems.

'No answer was the stern reply', it seem to me that when anyone says anything which has the hint of debate about it previous respondents are 'off like a dirty shirt' I tried this on a Thai, a lady working in the golf shop at Chuen Cheun, she was wearing glasses, always the sign of an educated person I find, and she averred that it was โง่เง่า so I think we can assume that it is not Thai. Her reaction would indicate that the reason is that it probably doesn't "work grammatically". Now we can either decide that we are well on the way to inventing a language of our own or we can try to make it work, only the poster can tell us what it means to him in English and have a go at a sentence in Thai for a start. Do you not think that the English saying 'it never rains but it pours' not being a truth, it often just showers, is the first hurdle to be overcome in getting it accepted as our very first idiom in TV?

[meadish_sweetball]

I'm away from the keyboard a lot more than usual these days - on vacation and out of the country, so that's why I only post sporadically.

I see from my dictionary that พอไค้ is a คำวิเศษณ์ meaning พอใช้ได้บ้าง so an adjective? Given the pasting I got over interpreting หากิน can this be ignored?

Yes, I think it should be ignored in this construction.

ได้มาก is easier verb and adverb. Ignoring that if it is possible to do, I feel that there must be some time involved to use พอ.....ก้.... I do think now that I've been pressed that it is not 'meaty' enough to do anything with and may be 'Thaigrit', has a Thai native speaker ever commented on it?

I think the time aspect is inherent in พอ when used in this type of construction. I am not in Thailand at present and thus have no native speaker of Thai to ask. Perhaps one of our native speaker members has the time to weigh in?

I understand 'It never rains but it pours' to mean, everything coming at once, usually used when you are overwhelmed with problems.

I was unaware of any negative connotation of 'When it rains it really pours'. If this is how the English phrase is commonly understood you are indeed correct that it is not a perfect match for the Thai which seems more neutral.

[aanon]

I'm away from the keyboard a lot more than usual these days - on vacation and out of the country, so that's why I only post sporadically.

I see from my dictionary that พอไค้ is a คำวิเศษณ์ meaning พอใช้ได้บ้าง so an adjective? Given the pasting I got over interpreting หากิน can this be ignored?

Yes, I think it should be ignored in this construction.

ได้มาก is easier verb and adverb. Ignoring that if it is possible to do, I feel that there must be some time involved to use พอ.....ก้.... I do think now that I've been pressed that it is not 'meaty' enough to do anything with and may be 'Thaigrit', has a Thai native speaker ever commented on it?

I think the time aspect is inherent in พอ when used in this type of construction. I am not in Thailand at present and thus have no native speaker of Thai to ask. Perhaps one of our native speaker members has the time to weigh in?

I understand 'It never rains but it pours' to mean, everything coming at once, usually used when you are overwhelmed with problems.

I was unaware of any negative connotation of 'When it rains it really pours'. If this is how the English phrase is commonly understood you are indeed correct that it is not a perfect match for the Thai which seems more neutral.

on this final point, i have to agree. usually, though there are exceptions, 'it never rains but it pours' is used to express frustration. the thai phrase seems much more straightforward.

i'd expect the thai phrase to be used in this type of situation:

"for the first 4 years we got no fruit on our trees. but once they started to deliver, they did so in great quantity."

all the best.

[tgeezer]

sounds like a good translation to me too. in case anyone is wondering, it literally says "once i got (some), i got a lot".

all the best.

I am wondering because it is meaningless, without meaning, fabricated, it is a conjunction พอ.....ก็ and it joins the verb ได้ to another verb (unfortunately the same one) and adverb. The words are 'sufficient received' and as a result of that 'received a lot'. Which is ok in pidgeon English but I suggest, not in Thai. Rain is not mentioned but the idea of receiving rain is ludicrous probably to Thais as well. The implication suggested by the obdurate nature of attempts to explain it seem to be based more on the meaning of the English saying than on the meaning in Thai. Could the acceptance that it has meaning come from a belief that it is a shortened form of some well known Thai saw? I have had one person describe it as โง่เง่า. No one has commented on that or on my suggestion that we are inventing our own language, whats up? I want to be proved wrong so get on with it.

Edited February 27, 2008 by tgeezer

[aanon]

I am wondering because it is meaningless, without meaning, fabricated, it is a conjunction พอ.....ก็ and it joins the verb ได้ to another verb (unfortunately the same one) and adverb. The words are 'sufficient received' and as a result of that 'received a lot'. Which is ok in pidgeon English but I suggest, not in Thai. Rain is not mentioned but the idea of receiving rain is ludicrous probably to Thais as well. The implication suggested by the obdurate nature of attempts to explain it seem to be based more on the meaning of the English saying than on the meaning in Thai. Could the acceptance that it has meaning come from a belief that it is a shortened form of some well known Thai saw? I have had one person describe it as โง่เง่า. No one has commented on that or on my suggestion that we are inventing our own language, whats up? I want to be proved wrong so get on with it.

พอ X ก็ Y

as soon as X, Y

พอเราไปถึงก็เรียกซาร่าเลยทันที พอน้องเห็นปุบก็ ไหว้เช่นเคย

as soon as i arrived, i called for sarah. as soon as she saw me, she gave me a wai as always.

note that X does not necessarily cause Y. for example: พอแม่เดินออกจากบ้าน ฝนก็เริ่มตก (as soon as mum walked outside, it began to rain).

in this case

X = ได้ (to get) eg. profit, fruit, opinions, ideas...

Y = ได้มาก (to get a lot)

so the phrase means 'as soon as i/you/he/she/it/they got [some], i/you/he/she/it/they got a lot'.

by the way, i'm not claiming that it's a thai idiom, just a string of words that might come up and can be interpreted.

all the best.

ps. it's a side issue, but ปีนี้ได้ฝนน้อยกว่าปีที่แล้ว (this year we got less rain than last year) also makes sense. that is, thais do use ได้ with ฝน.

Edited February 28, 2008 by aanon

[aanon]

taxexile, do you have any context for where you heard this expression? you might be able to clear things up a little...

all the best.

[tgeezer]

I am wondering because it is meaningless, without meaning, fabricated, it is a conjunction พอ.....ก็ and it joins the verb ได้ to another verb (unfortunately the same one) and adverb. The words are 'sufficient received' and as a result of that 'received a lot'. Which is ok in pidgeon English but I suggest, not in Thai. Rain is not mentioned but the idea of receiving rain is ludicrous probably to Thais as well. The implication suggested by the obdurate nature of attempts to explain it seem to be based more on the meaning of the English saying than on the meaning in Thai. Could the acceptance that it has meaning come from a belief that it is a shortened form of some well known Thai saw? I have had one person describe it as โง่เง่า. No one has commented on that or on my suggestion that we are inventing our own language, whats up? I want to be proved wrong so get on with it.

พอ X ก็ Y

as soon as X, Y

พอเราไปถึงก็เรียกซาร่าเลยทันที พอน้องเห็นปุบก็ ไหว้เช่นเคย

as soon as i arrived, i called for sarah. as soon as she saw me, she gave me a wai as always.

note that X does not necessarily cause Y. for example: พอแม่เดินออกจากบ้าน ฝนก็เริ่มตก (as soon as mum walked outside, it began to rain).

in this case

X = ได้ (to get) eg. profit, fruit, opinions, ideas...

Y = ได้มาก (to get a lot)

so the phrase means 'as soon as i/you/he/she/it/they got [some], i/you/he/she/it/they got a lot'.

by the way, i'm not claiming that it's a thai idiom, just a string of words that might come up and can be interpreted.

all the best.

ps. it's a side issue, but ปีนี้ได้ฝนน้อยกว่าปีที่แล้ว (this year we got less rain than last year) also makes sense. that is, thais do use ได้ with ฝน.

Good, I take the point about the ได้ฟน I am not so sure about the connection, one does not have to be as a result of another but there has to be a connection which there is in all of your examples. 'As a result' is probably not the best way of saying it, how would you tanslate this ? เชื่อมความที่คล้อยตามกัน but I am not sure that structure is as important as I once thought, after all, first came the language then someone came and explained it. So we have this now, two verbs, and a conjuction and all we need to do is explain it. It is not a truism is it? but it fits some situations like the twins being born when all that was desired was one girl child. or even 'it never rains but it pours!' Back to the problem: I asked my neighbour who takes a constitutional every morning as I leave for golf, and she could make nothing of it, she took it indoors on the pretext of needing glasses where I think she consulted her kids who are at secondary school. At the golf club, at first noone recognised it but later people claimed to undertand it. In golfing terms it was explained as; having three holes out of five was fair and five would be many. The caddy who is good at language said he understood but wanted to put ก็อยากได้มาก he would, I don't tip much! When I got home there was a note stuck to my gate it said.

พอได้ก็ไค้มาก

=ไม่สม่ำเสมอ

ไม่สมดุลย์

(NOT BALANCE)

It would seem that todays crowd is more amenable and I now think that โง่เง่า is possibly too strong; the spectacles deceived me. Now the task is to get those less tractable Thais on-board, I have gone a long way on the golf course but they don't really understand it yet, I think when standing on the ninth tee after three double bogeys One might slip it in. What do you think?

Edited February 28, 2008 by tgeezer

[tgeezer]

พอได้ก็ไค้มาก

=ไม่สม่ำเสมอ

ไม่สมดุลย์

(NOT BALANCE)

It would seem that todays crowd is more amenable and I now think that โง่เง่า is possibly too strong; the spectacles deceived me. Now the task is to get those less tractable Thais on-board, I have gone a long way on the golf course but they don't really understand it yet, I think when standing on the ninth tee after three double bogeys One might slip it in. What do you think?

Comment on the note: No such word as สมดุลย์ it doesn't need the ย์ must have been written by a kid. If they wrote ไม่ตามหลักไวยากรณ์ ? but maybe I am reading too much into it and we know that already, or I do.