please help with grammar.

SomeCallMeChris said:

It's more or less,
"Sneaking a look at the alien transfer student, I saw he was motionlessly facing the blackboard. 'Is this for real?' I muttered to myself."

I don't exactly know what he's muttering about either, but it's either simply being incredulous that there's an extraterrestrial transfer student, or it's being incredulous that said student is motionlessly facing (staring at?) the blackboard. Or both. Context should make it clear.

That is to say, the sentence you're asking about is a very general statement of disbelief that doesn't really specify exactly what is unbelievable.

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SomeCallMeChris said:

Yeah, except そんなわけ is 'that kind of reason', not 'what kind of reason'.

In any case, そんなわけ is an expression that is a little skewed from normal use of 訳. そんなわけがあったか = "Is that how it is?" or "Is that what happened?"
そんなわけがあるか = "Is that possible?" or "How could that be possible?"

Your sentence is just a strong version of そんなわけがあるか
The かいな instead of か makes it completely clear that it's a rhetorical question expressing disbelief. かい and な are sentence ending particles on their own so the sense seems clear enough anyway, but the かいな combination does have its own dictionary entry on that exact point.

I see you keep wanting this to be a 'grammar' that you can understand, but honestly, it's just a slightly idiomatic usage of common words and grammar. Noting that かい is a rougher version of か is about as much of a grammar-point as there is here. It's a -very- common idiom though so well worth memorizing.

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letslearn said:

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I thought that かいな might have been a shortened version of a negation or something similar.
As mikesan says exposure exposure exposure.
Thanks heaps

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