I have a question: This part uses エリンたち twice, but I don’t understand what it means as she is just alone? Here are the sentence parts in which it occurs:
。。。じっと立ちつくしているエリンたちの頭上を、。。。 エリンたちが近づくと、馬と山羊が、。。。
たち attaching to a name is used to refer to that person and the group that includes that person, contextually. In this case, it simply means “Erin and John”. The sentence focuses on the name that the たち is attached to, obviously (“Erin and John”).
Edit: Oh, I noticed that you were saying she’s alone. But no she wasn’t, John was next to her in both times, right?
Oh yes, that makes sense, thank you! I was of the impression that she was rather on her own, especially in the second scene when she approaches the pasture, but now that I reread it, it starts with おじさんについて. So it all fits together neatly
All the scenery talk is a bit rough so far. Gonna have to come back to this tomorrow since I’m just staring at the words at this point and not taking anything in.
Is the ば in とまってしまえば different from the conditional? He’s talking about what actually just happened and then describing what will happen next, so it being a conditional seems strange to me. Am I just overthinking it?
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おじさんについて、家の西側にまわっていくと、厩と山羊の囲いがあった。
What is the purpose of について here over just は? I have a vague understanding that について means “regarding” or “about”, as in “regarding the おじさん”, but I don’t know why this would be used specifically for this sentence. I think it was used twice this chapter, though I don’t remember where the other usage was.
Is he, though? I think he says „When (or, more natural: Once) they have settled down on a twig, they won‘t move for about half a day.“ So in English I would also use a conditional, I guess.
I believe たら expresses more of one-off occurrences in such cases (unless if we’re talking about a habit, which たら can be used for). If it’s a general occurrence that happens constantly when the condition (especially non volitional conditions) applies, ば would be the way to go I think. “Once A happens to happen, B” as @NicoleIsEnough is best to describe this.
and I finally finished the chapter 