73714
How would one translate this sentence into English?

> 蝋燭{ろうそく}はけっこう上のほうにある

I generally know what each of the words mean individually, however I don't
know if any of them change in this context. I'm reading a light novel and the
character has found him/herself in a cave with some lit candles around and is
a bit confused.

I think that it literally translates to "The candles are quite upright" which
of course makes little sense so my guess is that

[1] I am misreading "上" as "ue", though I can't imagine why it would be read
as "jou" or "nobo"  
[2] If I am reading it correctly, then the upright-ness of the candles refers
to their luminescence somehow.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-03T18:45:59.653
73711
2020-01-04T00:30:37.740
2020-01-03T19:29:18.550
3295
36478
question
translation meaning
How would one translate "蝋燭はけっこう上のほうにある" into English?
While there are several words matching `けっこう`, the most common and probable
one is 結構. It has [several
meanings](https://jisho.org/search/%E7%B5%90%E6%A7%8B), but the one used here
is most likely "quite", especially because it matches the verb ある.

上 is indeed うえ and with ほう(方) basically means "upward direction", however here
it indicates the location of the candles relative to the observer and not
their orientation.

The full sentence probably means something like:

> The candles were [placed] pretty high up.

For "straight/upright", a more likely word would be something like まっすぐ(な) or
直立(した).
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-03T19:50:30.917
73714
2020-01-04T00:30:37.740
2020-01-04T00:30:37.740
3295
3295
73711
answer