獣の奏者 chapter 4, part 4 discussion

[seanblue]

Join the Intermediate Book Club here!

獣の奏者 Home Thread

Chapter 4, Part 4: カザルム王獣保護場、王獣の笛

Start Date: May 16th
Previous Week: Chapter 4, part 3
Next Week: Chapter 4, part 5

Discussion Rules

• Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter and any content in future chapters.
• When asking for help, please mention the page number. If you are reading the ebook version mention the percentage.
• Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
• To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Read Aloud

Join the Japanese Book Club Discord Server!

We will be reading on Sundays at 10:00PM Japan time (reading the previous week’s content). Here is the time in your local time zone:

2020-05-24T13:00:00Z

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

• I’m reading along
• I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
• I’m no longer reading the book

If you’ve read ahead (or read the book before) but plan to participate, please vote for “I’m reading along”.

[icefang97]

This week was a nice reading. I miss some bit of information here and there but I hope will be help me out.

Spoiler

Short resume:
So from what I understood. We learn more about Erin’s life and that she now is used to it. Erin finds that the feather of the 王獣 does not luster like the savage one. She told it to Esare who told her it’s because they are all sick. Then bring her to see them. She learns that there is feathers mix with the straw. There is a test to see of the 学童(young student we can call them) notice them. Then a talk about how politics is include with the 王獣. Then she close the curtain and…she get sacifice to satan or something.(What do you mean I just invented that part. Esare starts to look creepy to me)

The fun thing is that I understood the beginning of a subject but never the ending. So I kinda get it but one or two stuff is not clear. Is my resume good?
Thank you

[seanblue]

I’ve actually never seen “resume” to mean “summary”, so that’s interesting. Looks like it comes from French (which isn’t surprising), but maybe it’s not used that way much in America.

Response

@icefang97

Erin finds that the feather of the 王獣 does not luster like the savage one.

I’d translate 野生 as “wild”, not “savage” by the way.

@icefang97

She told it to Esare who told her it’s because they are all sick.

Rather, エサル speculated that it could be because they are all sick. But then immediately afterward said that maybe there’s more to it than that.

@icefang97

She learns that there is feathers mix with the straw.

That’s 糞, not 藁. Important difference.

---

Regarding their tense exchange, エサル keeps asking エリン for more details about her past and all that. And then エリン gets annoyed with the back and forth so just explains that she really doesn’t know anything beyond what her mother taught her but that she has no loyalties to the people who killed her mother (or something like that). Then エサル says she doesn’t have any prejudice against the 闘蛇衆 but that she has other ulterior motives for asking that she’s not going to reveal at the moment.

There’s also an important bit where エサル asks エリン if she thinks she can notice more differences between the wild and captured 王獣 (besides the luster of the wings). エリン responds that she can’t know without trying, and when asked if she’d like to try she says that she would.

[Naphthalene]

@seanblue

I’ve actually never seen “resume” to mean “summary”

I guess you don’t know that many French speakers, then (I do not know where @icefang97 is from, though).
Fun fact, “summary” (well, “sommaire”) means “table of contents” for us.

[icefang97]

Answer

@seanblue

I’ve actually never seen “resume” to mean “summary”, so that’s interesting. Looks like it comes from French (which isn’t surprising), but maybe it’s not used that way much in America.

I’have being found out… I mean it comes from german. “Ein resume” Ich sprechen deutsch ya.

@seanblue

I’d translate 野生 as “wild”, not “savage” by the way.

Fren… German again came out without me noticing it.

@seanblue

That’s 糞, not 藁. Important difference.

Oh! I looked at the other kanji the day before and was sure it was the same. Well… close I guess…

@seanblue

There’s also an important bit where エサル asks エリン if she thinks she can notice more differences between the wild and captured 王獣 (besides the luster of the wings). エリン responds that she can’t know without trying, and when asked if she’d like to try she says that she would.

Makes sense although I prefer my ending.

[Naphthalene]

@icefang97

ya

[NicoleRauch]

@seanblue

I’ve actually never seen “resume” to mean “summary”, so that’s interesting. Looks like it comes from French

We have the same word in German: Resümee (I only wrote that down to make all the French speakers cringe ) which also means summary.
Also, English is not really helpful here as it also features the word “to resume” which is something else entirely.

[icefang97]

@NicoleRauch

We have the same word in German: Resümee (I only wrote that down to make all the French speakers cringe ) which also means summary.

I was right ya. ich komme aus Deutschland. Ich spreche nich Französich. Sprechest du Deutsch?

[seanblue]

They are pronounced differently at least.

[Naphthalene]

That’s like revenge cringe.

[icefang97]

I don’t really get why it’s cringe though

[Naphthalene]

I was referring to the “make French people cringe” part in @NicoleRauch’s post and you butchering some German back, ja?
(Probably even needs a capital J for all I know)

To go back to the thread’s topic, I’m low key wondering if エリン could just attempt the final exam directly and get a passing grade already.

[icefang97]

@Naphthalene

I was referring to the “make French people cringe” part in @NicoleRauch’s post and you butchering some German back, ja?

I wasn’t cringed at all. And my German was PERFECT DON’T YOU DARE SAY OTHERWISE.

@Naphthalene

To go back to the thread’s topic, I’m low key wondering if エリン could just attempt the final exam directly and get a passing grade already.

Probably not. I mean there is probably a lot more to know about them.

[NicoleRauch]

While you’re right about the butchering part, capitals are only for nouns and the like, luckily.

[Naphthalene]

I know that much, but then I got confused as to what the heck “yes” is. Dictionary, I summon thee!
Dictionary: 副詞
Oh. Okay then.

I should really go to bed before I derail this thread too much.

[NicoleRauch]

@Naphthalene

Dictionary: 副詞

Whoa Would have never guessed that…

BTW “ja” seems to be a particle! I did not even know German has particles

[seanblue]

I’m having trouble with one sentence. (Mostly figured out when typing the question, but wouldn’t mind confirmation.)

At 81%

まさか、王獣が闘蛇と同じように音無し笛で操られているとは思ってもみなかった。

Everything before とは is easy to understand, but the 思ってもみなかった was hard to figure out. Now that I typed it out, I saw with Yomichan that that’s an entire phrase meaning “unexpected”. So now I’m just trying to break it down to understand how it’s constructed.

If this is 思っても見ない, then I guess it’s “even if you think (it), you don’t see (it)”, hence “unexpected”. I’ll go with that unless someone has a better explanation.

---

Also, wanted to say that one of my favorite things about this book is Erin’s musings. Example from this chapter:

（特滋水…？）

母が闘蛇に与えていたものと同じ液だろうか。それとも、獣に与える滋養を溶いた水は、すべて特滋水と呼ぶのだろうか。

[mrahhal]

If this is 思っても見ない, then I guess it’s “even if you think (it), you don’t see (it)”, hence “unexpected”. I’ll go with that unless someone has a better explanation.

Overall the meaning is the same, but I believe it’s from 思ってみる (as in 思ってみることすらしていない). So ～てみる instead of 見る, and も being inserted in between is a pattern we see in many other places.

@seanblue

Also, wanted to say that one of my favorite things about this book is Erin’s musings. Example from this chapter:

[Sylph]

This chapter was long but it caught my interest so I read it in basically one go (with small breaks).
I’m glad to say this one felt easier, not sure if it just was or all the WaniKani I’m doing lately is finally helping with those pesky kanji.

@NicoleRauch

@seanblue

I’ve actually never seen “resume” to mean “summary”, so that’s interesting. Looks like it comes from French

We have the same word in German: Resümee (I only wrote that down to make all the French speakers cringe ) which also means summary.

Same in Spanish but with ‘Resumen’.