Skilled clock maker with 職人
Vocabulary Explanation: Skilled artisan with 職人
Having received a letter requesting help solving a mystery, Kogoro finds himself in a house filled with animal designs everywhere, including the doors, the chairs, and the plates. His attention turns to the clocks covering the walls.
- 小五郎:
- 「しかし動物もさることながら、時計もたくさんありますなー．．．」
- “But aside from the animals, there are also a lot of clocks, huh...”
- 男:
- 「当たり前ですよ．．． 祖父は時計職人だったんですから．．．」
- “Of course there are... Grandfather was a clock maker, after all...”
Key Points
- 時計職人 = “clockmaker” / “clock artisan”
- Here 職人 means a skilled craftsperson, not just someone with a job; it emphasizes trained hands-on workmanship
- With 時計 in front, 時計職人 becomes a craftsperson who makes or works on clocks, which is why maker fits naturally in the translation
- Compound noun pattern: 時計 + 職人
- There is no particle between the two nouns; 時計 directly specifies what kind of artisan he was
- This same pattern is very common in Japanese: [thing] + [person/role] → a person who works with that thing
- だったんですから = explanatory reason
- だった is the past form of です / だ, and んです adds an explanatory tone: you see / the reason is that…
- から gives the reason, so 祖父は時計職人だったんですから means it’s because Grandfather was a clockmaker
- In context, he is explaining why the house naturally has so many clocks
- 当たり前ですよ = “Of course”
- This replies directly to Kogoro’s observation about all the clocks and treats it as something completely expected
- The polite ですよ adds a lightly emphatic, matter-of-fact tone: Naturally / Of course there are