獣の奏者 chapter 1, part 3 discussion

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Chapter 1, Part 3: 蜂飼い、女王の乳タブ・チム

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Start Date: March 7th
Previous Week: Chapter 1, part 2
Next Week: Chapter 2, part 1

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That was a chill afternoon at the café, reading this section :slight_smile: First I thought I had accidentally picked a biology middle-school textbook and opened the bees section, but luckily towards the end the subject shifted to something more interesting.

I have some questions:

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おまえの舌が女王蜂になったりはせんから、安心しろ!

Here I’m a bit surprised by the はせん. I would have expected しない or something here, so I guess this is some kind of dialect? I searched for たりはせん, and it seems to occur in a number of books, always in spoken language, but I could not find an explanation. Does anybody have more insights? I’m especially curious about the は; is this the particle? Can it go there in “standard” Japanese?

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This is the part where John speculates about where Erin comes from; I found this a bit hard to understand, in particular:

それでも、この子もまだ、大人の気持ちは察せられないようだ。

Hmm, causative-passive of “to guess” - how would you express that?? My take is something like:
Because she is still a child, she cannot be expected to guess / sense an adult’s feelings. (This being in contrast to her adult-like behaviour that I think he mused about in the previous sentence?)

なんとかやっていけるのではなかろうか

I’m quite lost in this… やって行く in potential means “can do going forward”? And the last bit is volitional of ではない? So altogether maybe something like this:
I wonder what she can do going forward / from now on.

Thank you :slight_smile:

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  1. I’m not gonna answer anything or Belerith will be after me :wink:
  2. I only got 2/3 the way through this afternoon becauzzzzz beezzzzzzz…
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grammar - What is the meaning of ~はしない? - Japanese Language Stack Exchange

せん is kind of dialect/contracted form of しない, yep. ^^ はしない is used for emphasis.

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Isn’t it 察する, thus making this simple passive/potential? I’ve been known to confuse this before tho. In this book if I remember correctly. :stuck_out_tongue: If I had to translate this, I’d go ‘Still, even this child cannot yet guess an adults feeling’. I’d also interpret this in contrast to her adult-like speech and conduct before.

I interpret なんとか as ‘somehow’, ‘anyhow’ usually. So it’s not that he’s wondering what she’ll do from here, but more like, ‘Seems like she’ll do/be fine’.

Thanks @Kyasurin :joy:

Feel free to add your 2 cents I won’t haunt you. :see_no_evil:

Won’t read this part before tomorrow, so you may have more context anyway.

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:joy:

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I found that a bit weird at first, from a conjugation perspective, because it should be just potential from the context. I found this which explained that 察する is an irregularly conjugated サ行 form (I’m guessing the same applies for the other weird one kanji verbs + す・する). And this uses られる for potential instead of eる, and that becomes 察せられる. So this is just pure potential. (It’s せ because that’s (one of) the 未然形 of する. “察せる” is thought to be a misusage)

なんとか やっていけるのではなかろうか

ではなかろうか is exactly like ではないだろうか.

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Thanks @Belerith and @mrahhal for unwinding my head on these bits. Especially considering this weird conjugation of 察する, it makes much more sense now!

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Oh this is irregular huh. I’ve just been treating these verbs as する conjugation without thinking about it. Glad I was actually right on this one. :see_no_evil:

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This remark of yours

actually made me double-check the conjugation of する again, and turns out that the potential of する is … drumroll … できる :joy_cat:

(also, passive is される and causative is させる/させられる, so none of these would fit 察 + some form of する anyways…)

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Exactly, it’s because none fit that I was confused. Usually I would also just read through it like @Belerith without even noticing :joy: But this time I stopped at it. Found this weblio page on the subject.

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This fits well though :eyes:

:sweat_smile:

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Does it? :thinking:
What is this supposed to be though? You mean, せられる as potential for する?

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It’s mostly a joke, but I must have subconsciously substituted that part of it into 察せられる.

It makes total sense in my head, but it doesn’t translate well outside of it. :man_shrugging: If I look at it too long I feel like it’ll stop making sense, so I’m not doing that. :eyes:

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I almost got through the whole reading in one day, but the part after the POV change is exhausting and it’s already late. Even still, 14 pages in one day (and not even on a weekend!) is pretty good for me. I’ll try to finish tomorrow.

Also, @NicoleIsEnough, I found all the bee stuff to be interesting.

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I totally agree, it was interesting, and I did not know all the details before. It just got a bit… long.

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I really just want to say that I love that we’re reading a chapter a week. It’s much easier both to stop reading and to start again this way. Very nice idea, @seanblue. :+1:

I wish all the books we read in the clubs had nice, bite sized chapters like this. :see_no_evil:

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I agree! With a kindle is so much simpler to read this way :relaxed:

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Just to be sure

蜜蜂はめったに人を刺さないが、興奮していたり、敵だと思ったら、命がけで襲ってくるんだぞ。

命がけ is referring to the bees risking their lives, not Erin’s life being on the line from the attack, right?

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I think so too :eyes: the bees feeling like they’re in danger, can attack people

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I can see it being read both ways but I read it the opposite way. Would be interested what other people think.

My reading

That bees rarely sting but if disturbed they could attack [in large enough numbers] that Erin’s life could be at risk.

I thought it was a given that bees die once they sting something so it made less sense to me to say that the bees are the ones risking their lives. That and Erin was being scolded about approaching the bees so ジョウン (John?) was worried about her safety and not the bees.

I agree with your reading. 命がけ qualifies 襲ってくる, so by risking their lives, they will attack.

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