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I understand that the better form of the sentence would be:

Success is determined by how determined you are to succeed.

but is the sentence I wrote wrong or ungrammatical?

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Success is determined by how determined you are to succeed

means

The degree of your determination influences the degree of your success.

You should not use

Success is determined by how you are determined to succeed

to mean this, because the latter either means

The way you find determination to succeed influences the degree of your success

or

Success is determined by how you define success.

The two sentences can be both grammatically correct, but there are three different meanings here.

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    Thanks very much, so you are saying that there are some differences in meaning between the two sentences but there are no grammatical errors. Am I correct?
    – Jin
    Commented Oct 8, 2014 at 12:39
  • Enormous differences in meaning, yes. The sentence you've written can't be read as inspiring or encouraging; it sounds like an easy falsifiable assertion.
    – Ernest Friedman-Hill
    Commented Oct 8, 2014 at 21:41
  • @ErnestFriedman-Hill : But how so? I see no Edit history on the question, so it seems like the O.P. asked "how determined you are", which matches the positive/approved part of the answer. Why the answer-er went on an unnecessary rant about a mistake that wasn't made is beyond me, since nobody said "how you are determined" except the person who provided this answer. Jin: Know how this is years old, but let me give you a very clear answer to the question in your comment: Yes.
    – TOOGAM
    Commented May 29, 2017 at 16:45
  • @TOOGAM I've read this a bunch of times and I can't suss out what you're asking me.
    – Ernest Friedman-Hill
    Commented May 29, 2017 at 22:58
  • What Jin wrote was, "Success is determined by how determined you are to succeed." So if "you" are very determined to succeed, that strong amount of determination will determine the fact that you'll get success. A promise of success = inspiring/encouraging; not easily falsifiable because if a person succeeds or not, that can then be retroactively used to credit/blame how determined the person was.
    – TOOGAM
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 5:42

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