Translate A Play On Words.

[leftnose]

Recently came across some text containing a quote of Mr. Don Poramatwinai ( นายดอน ปรมัตถ์วินัย), a Thai diplomat.

Apparently, it was popular last year. I believe it is a play on words in Thai.

I am curious as to how to translate it so as to keep the original intention of the speaker.

It is concerning the Mt. Phrawihan issue between Thailand and Cambodia.

ถ้าเราไมทันเขา คงเสร็จเขาไปแล้ว

I have done several Google searches on this line, but cannot find any English versions of it.

Give it some thought.

[aanon]

Recently came across some text containing a quote of Mr. Don Poramatwinai ( นายดอน ปรมัตถ์วินัย), a Thai diplomat.

Apparently, it was popular last year. I believe it is a play on words in Thai.

I am curious as to how to translate it so as to keep the original intention of the speaker.

It is concerning the Mt. Phrawihan issue between Thailand and Cambodia.

ถ้าเราไมทันเขา คงเสร็จเขาไปแล้ว

I have done several Google searches on this line, but cannot find any English versions of it.

Give it some thought.

Not really a play on words, I'd say. Just rather general and hard to translate well out of context.

ไม่ทันเขา : not [able to keep up with/not as quick as/not able to out-manoeuvre/not as smart as/not aware of the moves of] them

เสร็จเขา : to have lost to them/fallen victim to them etc.

Altogether:

"Had we not known what they were up to, we'd probably have lost to them already."

Again, a better translation is likely possible given full knowledge of the context.

[aanon]

To address the point about a play on words more fully, I'm saying that I don't think this sentence relies upon the double meaning of the word เขา (them/mountain). I see 'เสร็จ X' used regularly to mean 'to fall victim to X', where X might be a person, animal, nation, group etc. Even if we extended X to include inanimate objects, such as a mountain, I don't see how "falling victim to the mountain" makes sense in the context of Pra Wiharn. เสียเขา (to lose the mountain) would make more sense.

On the other hand, there is some contrast between the literal meanings of the words ไม่ทัน and เสร็จ, which you might look at as a kind of wordplay, I suppose.

I googled the phrase and saw it referred to as a phrase that warmed the hearts of the whole nation. Perhaps I'm missing something. I certainly welcome any further information/corrections.

p.s. Has anyone seen the word เสร็จ being used to mean "to lose (something)"? That would make sense of the phrase but it's not something I've encountered.

Edited March 29, 2009 by aanon

[Rikker]

aanon, I agree with your interpretation of it. Usage of เสร็จ is similar to เสร็จแน่ๆ "(you/he/she/they/we/whoever) is/are done for!!".

It's different in that เสร็จ here takes เขา "them" as a direct object, which is not uncommon, but perhaps less common. If you look in RID, you'll see this construction under the entry for a couple different meanings of เสร็จ:

เสร็จ (ปาก) สมใจหมาย เช่น ถ้าเขาเชื่อเรา เขาก็เสร็จเราแน่; เสียที, เสียรู้, เช่น ถ้าเราไว้ใจคนขี้โกง เราก็เสร็จเขาแน่;

เสร็จ (colloq.) to fall prey [note: not a literal translation], ex: "If they believe us, they're right where we want them"; to be defeated, to be outwitted, ex: "If we trust crooks, then they've outwitted us."

I think in these two examples they're splitting hairs -- the meanings seem very similar. But there you go.

[DavidHouston]

We have the identical wordplay in English:

" ถ้าเราไม่ทันเขา คงเสร็จเขาไปแล้ว"

"If they, our enemy, we do not surmount, then Mount Wiharn we’ll surely lose."

[leftnose]

Thanks everyone!,

All replies have been informative and helpful.

[aanon]

This is the sentence I found referrring to the OP's sentence via google:

"พี่ดอน-หนึ่งเดียวคนนี้ คือคนที่ทำให้คนไทย "ทั้งประเทศ" อุ่นใจด้วยประโยคว่า "ถ้า

เราไม่ทันเขา คงเสร็จเขาไปแล้ว"

In my post above I translated ทำให้อุ่นใจ as 'to warm the hearts'. This is wrong. It should be 'to comfort; to encourage; to relieve; to put at ease'. I was sucked in by the outward similarity with the English phrase.