Friends,

Here is a little mind teaser. Lexitron has a sample sentence for the word "เมื่อกี้" as follows:

เมื่อกี้กวางตัวหนึ่งกระโดดข้ามป่าไปอีกฝั่งหนึ่ง

Read literally, the deer would have jumped across the forest from one side to the other. This would seem like a prodigious leap, akin to superman's hurdling over tall buildings.

Perhaps the author meant the following:

"Just a little bit ago a deer jumped out of the forest from one side of theroad to the other in a single bound."

What do you think?

Would another possibility be : "Just a moment ago a deer ran from one side of this grove of trees to the other." That may be taking too much liberty, since ป่า does mean forest, and probably not grove per se. What do you think?

My feeling about this sentence is that กระโดด just mean moving in a jumping manner. It's not just one jump.

Edit: but this probably not a correct explanation because of เมื่อกี้.

My feeling about this sentence is that กระโดด just mean moving in a jumping manner. It's not just one jump.

Kris,

So you would have the sentence say, "The deer leaped and bounded from one end of the forest to the other."

Mike, is this similar to your analysis?

Thanks to you both.

My feeling about this sentence is that กระโดด just mean moving in a jumping manner. It's not just one jump.

Kris,

So you would have the sentence say, "The deer leaped and bounded from one end of the forest to the other."

Mike, is this similar to your analysis?

Thanks to you both.

That was my first thought David. But it doesn't really match with มื่อกี้, because this action probably took a long time and didn't happen in a "moment".

I think Kris makes a good point about the manner rather than the quantity of jumps. As for the "forest" question, I'm still skeptical that forest would have the same implication of extensiveness that it would in English and so I would probably stretch it to mean grove.

I get the feeling that perhaps it's a clearing in the forest and the deer bounds from one side to the other. Deers can be quite fast animals when they need to be.

"Just a moment ago, a dear sprang out of the forest."

Edit: sorry, on second thoughts, maybe not.

david

I think the sample used by Lexitron is not a proper one. It confuses the foreigners.

เมื่อกี้กวางตัวหนึ่งวิ่งจากป่านี้ไปป่าโน้น or เมื่อกี้กวางตัวหนึ่่งวิ่งจากป่านี้แล้วข้ามถนนเข้าป่าโน้น This is its meaning, IMO.