Translation Help (Text From a Short Story)

[MaximumBurst]

I've been reading a series of short stories online, and I came across a small section that I can't quite grasp. The problem I'm having is with the phrase "共通の知人がいたり、" in the following lines.

しばらく管野さんと、扶桑の思い出話。共通の知人がいたり、欧州と扶桑の文化、食の
違いなどで盛り上がる。

The context is that two girls originally from Fuso (Japan) have recently met for the first time in Europe and have broken the ice, so they begin their small-talk to get to know one another. This line is narrated in the first person. Here's what I can translate for the text without the part that I'm confused about:

"Kanno-san and I talked about our memories from Fuso for a while. We excitedly talked about things like *???*, European and Fusoan culture, and the differences in the food."

As for 共通の知人がいたり、here's what I know:
"共通" means "common"
"知人" means "friend" or "acquaintance"
and then the "がいたり" I have no clue how that is broken down. I would guess that it's "ga itari" with the "itari" being the "-tari" form of "iru"? I'm really stumped on that one.


I hope I was able to state my question clearly and give enough context. I also hope I didn't make myself look too dumb.

[Mystique]

Your breakdown of the phrase is correct. Check the ～たりする section in the Taekim's Guide to Learning Japanese.

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/compound

[MaximumBurst]

Thanks.

Okay, so now my problem is bringing it together. So if I were to drop the "-tari", the phrase by itself would be:

共通の知人がいる - (literally) common kind of friends to be

So could that then translate to: "We became friends." ?

In that case, I would have to revise how I translated that passage.

[Mystique]

共通の知人がいる is more like, "there are common friends."

[MaximumBurst]

Yeah, I was really thinking it was something like that to begin with, but didn't seem to make sense to me in the context. I mean, these characters just met for the first time, so I don't know why they would have common friends.

This is assuming that "common" means "shared" rather than "regular".

Thanks for the help, though. I'll just have to think about it in perhaps a bigger context.

[becki_kanou]

If they're both from the same home town it makes sense that they might know some of the same people. 知人 is just people that you know, not necessarily friends.