門番もいるが、蟻の子一匹出入りさせないなんて警備をずっと続けるより、それほど巨大な森でないならとっとと人に害をなすモンスターを駆除すればいい話だ。
How would you translate it? I’m confused with the より and the でないなら. Is this でない the negative form of 出る? I tried thinking as if the より was indicating comparation, but the sentence after it doesn’t seem to be connected with the sentence before it.
I’m not sure I can help with the whole thing, but でない is like ではない, じゃない, etc. Same thing. It’s a negation of the copula.
I don’t think より has anything to do with comparison in this sentence.
Ooooh, I didn’t know this way of saying じゃない、thanks a bunch 
Sure. I guess specifically it’s the negative form of である, which is a written copula that is more formal than だ but doesn’t indicate politeness or anything.
Do you have a bit more context? What on earth is this really about? haha
Hahaha, I guess I should. It’s from konosuba, the main character is talking about the city he arrived. It is an rpg styled city, with guards at the entrance. There’s a forest just outside the city with not many monsters…
He’s saying there’s a guard, but instead of standing watch all the time and not (figuratively) even letting a single little ant through, he’d be better off going into the (relatively small) woods and exterminating all the monsters that might harm people.
（門番もいるが、｛蟻の子一匹出入りさせないなんて｝警備を｛ずっと｝続けるより、それほど巨大な森でないなら｛とっとと｝｛人に害をなす｝モンスターを駆除すればいい）→ 話だ。
I tried parsing it in a way that made sense to me. The parenthesis was meant to show that it’s all a big clause modifying hanashi. Anything between brackets is purely descriptive. Was gonna try and post a translation but rhet already did that, so…
This.
By the way, the より means “instead of” or “more importantly” (the things coming after the より is more important. From the speakers view at least).
Thanks a lot! I wasn’t understanding that the second sentence was still talking about the guard, you people are awesome .
There are some parts I don’t understand quite well either but I think in this case yori it’s used as “rather” because the sentence says something like “even though there is a gatekeeper, rather than having such a tight security that doesn’t even let a small ant in, he should go into the forest and kill the monsters that harm people, since it’s not that big(the forest)” sorry for my english, I’m translating my third language into my second language ^^‘’
Oops, I see a lot of people already answered before me, I’m from the phone and I didn’t see.
You also helped, thanks a lot
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