失敗するのを **気にしたら** 、 **まちがいなく** 失敗してしまう。 =If we think of failure, we will
certainly fail.

When I read the example the first time, thinking it's a proverb, I interpreted
it like:

_If you **mind** failure, you will fall in/encounter/make the **no-mistakes**
failure._

What prevents 'grammatically' such interpretation?

* * *

* * *

Edit:

> **Comment on @shingo.nakanishi answer:** Can I say [ **雨ない** 年だった.] for 'It
> was a **no-rain** /rainless year.'?  
> If YES, then why can't we think of まちがいない as a 'whole word' that modifies 失敗
> in [失敗するのを気にしたら、 **まちがいない** 失敗してしまう。] also?

> **Comment on @naruto answer:** Is [雨な **く** 年だった.] for 'It was a rainless
> **ly** year' correct in Japanese?  
> If YES, then why can't we consider まちがいなく as an adverbial that modifies 失敗
> in [失敗するのを **気にしたら** 、 **まちがいなく** 失敗してしまう。] also?
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meaning translation parsing interpretation
Why can't まちがいなく失敗 mean 'a zero-mistakes失敗'?
You translated it as "no mistake", which is a **noun** , but you should notice
なく is the **ku-form** (≒adverbial form). The very literal translation of 間違いなく
is "error-less- **ly** " or "in an error-free manner", which is why it is
usually translated as "certainly", "undoubtedly" or "without doubt" in
English.

* * *

**EDIT:** The basic rule you have to keep in mind is actually very simple. The
連体形 (i-form) modifies a noun (thus called "adjectival"), and the 連用形 (ku-form)
modifies a verb (thus called "adverbial"). For example 速 **い** 車 is "a fast
car" and this 速い/fast is adjectival because it modifies a noun. 速 **く** 走る is
"to run fast", and this 速く/fast is called adverbial because it modifies a verb
(although 速く is a form of an adjective).

If you said 間違いない失敗をする, it would mean something funny and paradoxical like "to
make an un-mistaken mistake" or "to make an error-less error". That's not
something you want to say. Here 間違いなく must modify 失敗する **adverbially**.
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**間違いなく** means **without a doubt**

In this case, **without** is a good translation of **ない**.

"ない" denies "間違い", not "失敗".

If you deny "失敗" in Japanese, you get "失敗しない".

**There is no** such expression as "なく失敗" or "ない失敗", so you can't read it
wrong.

The Japanese language is quite different from the English word order, so
**it's easy to misread it if you read it in the English word order**.

On the other hand, This makes it very difficult for Japanese to learn English.

In Japanese, the pattern of negative words coming from the front is for kanji
such as "非", "不", "否". As you can see from the fact that it is a Kanji, this
usage comes from ancient China.

sample:

  * 非常識
  * 不必要
  * 否決

On the other hand, put "ない" behind the word.

  * 非常識（常識がない）
  * 不必要（必要ない）
  * 否決（承認しない）

response to comments:

> Can I say [雨ない年だった.] for 'It was a no rain/rainless year.'?

"雨ない年だった" and "雨なく年だった" is very unnatural.

"雨のない年だった", "雨の降らない年だった" or "雨が降らない年だった" is natural.

I can't explain why, by the way, but you can't say "まちがいな **い** 失敗してしまう。".
Change it to **く** to be correct.

If you must use **い** , you can express it as:

「失敗するのを気にしたら、失敗してしまうよ。間違いな **い** ね。」（spoken language）

I don't know why. I'm Japanese, so it comes naturally to me.

By the way, you can use **く** in this case.

「失敗するのを気にしたら、失敗してしまうよ。間違いな **く** ね。」（spoken language）

Or something like this:

失敗するのを気にしたら、失敗してしまう。これは間違いな **い** ことです。

In this case, you **can not** say これは間違いな **く** ことです. Again, I don't know why.

But if you use "そう" instead of "こと", you can use **く** not **い**.

失敗するのを気にしたら、失敗してしまう。これは間違いな **く** そうです。

I can only give you same example. I can't explain.

By the way, "間違いな **い** そうです", It means that I heard that way.
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