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博士の愛した数式 - The Housekeeper and the Professor 
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Week 13
Start Date: Dec 12th
Previous Part: Week 12
Next Part: Week 14
Reading:
| Week |
Start Date |
End Phrase |
End Page |
End Percentage |
Page Count |
| Week 13 |
Dec 12th |
。。。理解している人の目だと思った。 |
188 |
65% |
14 |
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whewee, that was a fun section. The way 小川洋子 stretched out the tension with descriptions for pages on pages before anyone talks was masterful. And then, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted more to reach through the pages of a book and slap someone upside the head. I cheered when 博士 presented the note. Looking forward to next week!
2 Likes
I’m not totally sure I understand this part, page 178:
製造番号がいくらであろうと、冷蔵庫はただ自分の役目を果たすだけし、no.３４１の決算書を提出した人は、今も税金問題に頭を悩ませている。
I general think it means
No matter what the serial number is, the refrigerator will just do its job, and the person who produced financial statement No. 341 will be worried about his tax problems even now.
I’m particularly unsure about the first part, and have questions especially about
いくら “how much”? Is this used instead of 何 because it’s a number?
であろうと I feel like I only vaguely understand this grammar. Any insights are welcome.
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I don’t have too many insights yet as I have not read this week’s chapter yet 
But maybe I can give some hints with your questions…
I think for いくら it’s definition #3 in Jisho: “however (much); no matter how”, which feels like the number does not matter at all (and that’s how you translated it, too), but with 何 it feels to me like talking about a specific number (as in “which one is it?”). (But I have nothing to prove this, just my gut feeling.)
For であろうと, this is basically である in volitional form + と (“when”). である has the same meaning as です, the neat difference is that it’s a verb and so it can be plugged into lots of grammatical locations where a verb is required. Also, it is more common in written texts to use である.
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