Ticket inspection aboard a water bus with 船内
During a meal before practice, Aika notices how Akari is friends with many strangers. Akari says she’ll be missing practice that afternoon because Alicia asked her to buy something. Once she’s gone, Aika and Alice decide to tail her and see if they can learn her secret to being friends with everyone.
The two lose sight of Alice, but Alice suggests Akari may have boarded the vaporetto, the water bus. They decided to board as well, but Aika’s never been on the vaporetto before. Alice explains the ticket system, which doesn’t require showing one’s ticket when getting off, but that doesn’t mean they can skip paying.
- アリス:
- 「時々 船内で抜き打ち検査があるのです」
- “Every now and then, they do surprise inspections on board.”
Key Points
船内 = “inside the boat”
Here 船内で sets the location of the inspection: it happens aboard the vaporetto, not at the dock.
船 means “boat”, and 内 means “inside”, so the compound literally means “inside the boat”.
抜き打ち検査 = surprise inspection
抜き打ち means something done without warning, so 抜き打ち検査 is an unannounced ticket check rather than a routine scheduled inspection.
Structure: 船内で … がある
で marks where the event happens, and がある means “there is”.
So the line is literally “Every now and then, there are surprise inspections on board.”
のです adds an explanatory tone
Alice is explaining the ticket system to someone unfamiliar with it, so があるのです has a calm explanatory feel.
In plainer speech, this could be があるんです or just がある.