สมองใส

[DavidHouston]

From Lexitron comes the following word:

สมองใส [V] be clear-headed; be bright Syn. หัวใส Ant. สมองทึบ

Sample: เด็กนักเรียนสมองใสมากที่สามารถคิดประดิษฐ์เครื่องแบบนี้ขึ้นมาได้

My question is what is the meaning of the sample sentence. Is it one of the following:

The student who designed this uniform was very bright indeed.

The student must have been very bright to be able to have designed this uniform.

Does the "ที่สามารถ" imply causality, that is, the ability to design is a function of his or her intelligence or is the "ที่สามารถ" merely indicative of the who the bright student is. Perhaps there is not sufficient contextual information to be able to know but I would like to know whether the sentence structure itself, standing alone, is sufficient to provide specific meaning. Or, is some other meaning implied.

Thanks.

[kriswillems]

In my opinion the your second translation is correct.

There are 2 possible translations:

1. The very bright student that was able to design this uniform

This first translation would just be a part of a sentence.

2. The student must have been very bright to be able to have designed this uniform. (your second translation)

I would translate this sentence:

The student who designed this uniform was very bright indeed (your first translation)

as

เด็กนักเรียนที่คิดประดิษฐ์เครื่องแบบนี้ขึ้นมา(น่าจะ)สมองใสมาก

Edited April 30, 2009 by kriswillems

[oldsparrow]

I think the tran. can be:

The student who designed this uniform was very bright indeed.

นักเรียนคนที่ออกแบบเครื่องแบบนี้สมองใสมาก

(คนที่ = specific student / the student who)

The student must have been very bright to be able to have designed this uniform.

นักเรียนต้องสมองใสมากถึงจะออกแบบเครื่องแบบนี้ได้

(ต้องสมองใสมาก = must be the bright one)

[tgeezer]

From Lexitron comes the following word:

สมองใส [V] be clear-headed; be bright Syn. หัวใส Ant. สมองทึบ

Sample: เด็กนักเรียนสมองใสมากที่สามารถคิดประดิษฐ์เครื่องแบบนี้ขึ้นมาได้

My question is what is the meaning of the sample sentence. Is it one of the following:

The student who designed this uniform was very bright indeed.

The student must have been very bright to be able to have designed this uniform.

Does the "ที่สามารถ" imply causality, that is, the ability to design is a function of his or her intelligence or is the "ที่สามารถ" merely indicative of the who the bright student is. Perhaps there is not sufficient contextual information to be able to know but I would like to know whether the sentence structure itself, standing alone, is sufficient to provide specific meaning. Or, is some other meaning implied.

Thanks.

I see this as more than one student and two statements made about them. เด็กนักเรียนสมองใสมาก very clever school children are able to design this uninform, very clever school children ขั้นมาได้

what ever they mean by that.

Please tell me where I am going wrong.

[yoot]

เด็กนักเรียนสมองใสมากที่สามารถคิดประดิษฐ์เครื่องแบบนี้ขึ้นมาได้

I think you guys misunderstood something.

Actually this sentence is "เด็กนักเรียนสมองใสมากที่สามารถคิดประดิษฐ์เครื่อง แบบนี้ขึ้นมาได้"

-The student was very bright to be able to invent this kind of machine(or device).

Edited May 26, 2009 by yoot

[oldsparrow]

Oh yes indeed K. yoot, thanks krub!!

[DavidHouston]

Wonderful, Khun Yoot! Thank you for pointing out my error of confusing a classifier for a vocabulary word.

[Rikker]

I prefer your second definition too, David. We might translate it (awkwardly) as "Very bright is the student who is able to invent a device such as this," though overall I think either one is workable.

[tgeezer]

I prefer your second definition too, David. We might translate it (awkwardly) as "Very bright is the student who is able to invent a device such as this," though overall I think either one is workable.

Whats awkward about that?

It seems that interpreting the meaning is more an art than a science and I seem to lack the artiface, but it doesn't mean that my questions don't need answering.

I know what all the words mean, but don't know what the meaning is, everyone is so much more certain than me.

The Subject:

Whats wrong with Scoolchildren? Why should เด็กนักเรียนสมองไสมาก mean one very bright student; why not many? except that the more you write it the more it takes on meaning; using one adjective is more general whereas to apply two adjectives reduces the numbers who qualify for the epithet, but can that alone reduce the subject to singular status? I suspect that the appaent singular nature of the achievement (not when it was inventing a uniform!) influences the translation.

The Predicate.

It seems from this thread that สมองไสมาก is not an adjective but one statement about the subject, the other being สามารถประดิษฐ์เครื่องแบบนี้...........ขึ้นมาได้ It has to be a statement because it is followed by ที่ Children, clever are, who can invent this machine, Children who are clever can invent this machine. Same thing, but the Thai seems to be the Shakespearian (or Welsh parody) version which, to me, has a judgemental feel.

What is the role of ขึ้นมาได้? I guess it simply shows that the thing is passed/done/finished or reinforces สามารถ but if it could mean 'to achieve' then the sentence could mean 'clever children who are able to invent this machine can make it work! which gives back forsooth me my adjective.

Alack, in all likelyhood this is just a sentence saying something about school children inventing machines and being clever, for which half an hour of spoken intercourse would be required to arrive at the meaning as is often the true situation in all spoken language I suppose. And of course you would not need to render it in another language.

Written in hope of finding a like mind.

[Rikker]

(I meant awkward grammar -- that is not how we typically structure English sentences.)

I supposed it could be more than one student. Though Thai lacks explicit plural nouns, it's still common to include some other indicator of plurality (this *group* of schoolchildren; *these* schoolchildren; that sort of thing). But reading it as a a singular is not odd, and there's nothing about the sentence that makes plural particularly likely.

As for the rest of your reasoning, it's a bit befuddling. ที่ modifies เด็กนักเรียน, and there's no other possible interpretation that makes any sense.

The main clause of the sentence is เด็กนักเรียนสมองใสมาก "The student is very bright."

The clause ที่สามารถคิดประดิษฐ์เครื่องแบบนี้ขึ้นมาได้ is a subordinate clause. It cannot stand alone, as it is not a complete thought. In this place ที่ references เด็กนักเรียน, and in fact stands in its place. If we take เด็กนักเรียน and put it in both clauses, we have two statements:

เด็กนักเรียนสมองใสมาก "The student is very bright."

เด็กนักเรียนสามารถคิดประดิษฐ์เครื่องแบบนี้ขึ้นมาได้ "The student is able to invent a device like this."

ที่ connects them.

And ขึ้นมาได้ can only be interpreted as modifying the verb ประดิษฐ์.

[tgeezer]

[

You are quite right of course I have sorted it all out now. It is two sentences joined by a pronoun which acts as a conjunction. I went back to my books, I had forgotten that a modifier like 'clever' can be an intransitive-verb in Thai.