She catches the repetition in the numbers. 

"It repeats? It's a loop? How long is one repetition?"

He puts his finger in the sunlight. He moves his finger over to the east wall. He crosses the room. He traces a line from the west wall to where the sun is now. "That's one day," he says in Hari. "Hari is the Language of the Empire is three days and..." he thinks about it and then traces about two or three hours of sun movement. "And maybe that much. You'll want to watch it again if you have to sleep." He is not looking forward to sleeping in this room with the show going on all night.

"Three days and a few hours?" She doesn't understand the rest of what he said.

"Yes, three days and a few hours," Valanda says. He hopes Iri translated "hours" as a familiar unit of time because they measure time the same way and not because the magic can't tell the difference between different measurements of time shorter than a day.

Attempting to watch it for three days straight is certainly not an effective learning method. So missing pieces as needed to take other actions only makes sense.

"Could I ask you a few questions? It will make it easier for me to understand."

"You may ask."

"Thank you.

Do you use magic?" 'Have magic' is more likely to bring on reverse questions about her world, which she would prefer to avoid if possible. This way she can be taken to mean if he personally uses it. And if she is completely mistaken in the supposition, then she will come up with something she meant instead (the translation has been shown to not be perfectly flawless).

She's been talking to him this whole time and didn't notice he was a person? How weird. He wonders if they have people who don't have magic on the other continent. How would they even become people without it?

"Yes."

That is a rather important thing to know. And now she knows the word as well.

"Might it be possible for me to get some translations directly from the bird? I could gain some core words, and confirm ones I learned."

"I don't care, do what you want," Valanda tells Iri in Hari.

"I don't know how to ask her to pay me," says Iri. "If she even can."

"Iri wants..." Valanda mimes barter, giving with one hand and taking with the other.

Meanwhile Mahan is naming colors. This leaf is green, this cloth is blue.

"Compensation? Payment?

What would Iri want as payment?" she doesn't add that she doesn't exactly own anything; this seems apparent.

"I don't know what I want," Iri confides in Hari to Valanda.

"Is there anything you wish she would do differently?"

"No and I don't know what she could do for me. I wish I knew more about where she's from. Oh, that's what I want." Iri changes to Capital to try to speak to her. "I want where you come from."

That, she supposes, is something she indeed has to offer. "What would you like to know?"

If she's familiar with the body language of this species of eusocial bird people, she'll recognize Iri's shrug. If not, well, that's why Valanda echoes it in more human body language.

She is not familiar.

She considers this a rather silly way to ask a question, but, such a way it was asked. "I am also from an Empire. I've lived in several locations in it, including the capital city." Not that she'd gotten to see much of it. "As I mentioned, where I am from electricity is used to power a lot of technology. Where I come from, a series of episodes like this would be watched using technology. There is generally a way to pause, or rewind, or move to a different episode." Does this appear to be a kind of information Iri is interested in?

"Thank you," says Iri. "You want translations directly?"

"As opposed to?"

"I don't know how to figure out what she wants from me," says Iri, trembling like a scared bird. Iri regrets asking for payment. Iri regrets agreeing to this. Iri regrets existing. Iri regrets literally everything.

"You asked," says Valanda, "might it be possible for you to get some translations directly from the bird. What translations?" He doesn't add that Iri is terrified of her and that he suspects Iri hasn't bothered to remember much vocabulary and doesn't know how to ask for clarification besides repeating things. That's a little beyond him to explain.

She notices the body language.

"If I say some words or sentences, can Iri tell me how to say them in Hari?

"Is Iri alright?"

Alright, ha, Iri has everything they've ever worked for and nothing they've ever taken for granted and no idea what to do with any of the things they've been told all their life not to want and

also Iri hasn't really been paying attention to which words mean what and can't read Valanda's notes and Valanda's no help either, he just shrugs and now Iri's left the stranger waiting while they think and

"Can Iri tell me how to say them in Hari. Yes. Iri can. Is Iri alright," and Iri translates that into Hari. It's using a concept that's slightly slant of anything Hari has words for but it's close to a couple of different concepts. "Iri ar riuh i erhes au?"

Iri still seems distressed, and unfortunately this is an area where it is rather hard to assist given impeded communication.

"I'm not upset at you in any way, if you are worried about that. I am not asking you to do anything except tell me how to say things I say in Hari. If that is distressing I won't do it either. Is it?" 

She notices the lack of an exact word match. Does she know any of the words within it?

Refusing wouldn't be any less distressing and since Iri got payment up front it'd be dangerous to wait and let her decide she's owed something else later. And if Iri does more than they owe that's either dangerous or helpful, you can usually guess which by species but humans are rare and Iri isn't sure if they'll see weakness and press their advantage or if they'll want to be fair and repay Iri for helping.

Iri translates that for Valanda and then answers. "I tell you how to say things you say in Hari."

She might've heard on Hari is the Language of the Empire that it's important to make sure your sheep are "erhes" but it's not a word that's very easy to define by pointing at things. She's likely to recognize "Iri ar" as the same construction that starts "Hari Ar Sarag Marsaehu" and she might recognize "au" as a verbal question mark, if she's been able to tell when Valanda and Iri are asking each other questions and when they're making statements. Or she might recognize it when it shows up in Iri's translation of what she just said, which ends "ar au?" "Riuh" shows up there, too: "ar riuh" is the entire first clause and then it comes up again when in Iri's translation she says if it will make Iri stop being riuh she won't ask for more translations. It's possible she can parse the whole sentence, especially knowing what it's supposed to mean.

She can somewhat parse it. Something like 'Is Iri not-upset-at-her/undistressed and __ ?' The first part not in fact being what she meant, if the upset-at is important there. She notes to keep that in mind, but decides not to attempt in-depth investigation, at the moment. Not highest priority, and if it has to do with some cultural difference she will be better set up to understand it once she learns more.

"Thank you. Is there some reassurance or help I could give you that would make anything better? 

Do you have an established signal for 'I am saying this to you' as opposed to 'please translate this'?"

Iri trembles and translates all of that into Hari for Valanda.

"She's trying to tell you she'd rather back down than fight with you," says Valanda.

"Oh," says Iri. Iri thinks hard about how to answer in Capital. "Is reassurance, is better, is all right." They get some help from Valanda figuring out how to answer the other question. "No established signal."

By body language xie is at least somewhat in fact reassured, and if she is to attempt more she would want to wait for greater knowledge as well as intimacy level.

(She does not have enough words to understand Valanda's sentence.)

She nods.

And that seems an omission in translator work, but, is as it is. "Would just saying 'translate please' or the like be alright?"