Need help translating.

[warun]

Mukashi Mukashi kodomoga inai ojisan to obasan ga kamisama ni onegai o suru to koyubikurai no otokonoko ga umaremashita

Hey,
The above lines were taken from a children's story book written entirely in hiragana, the name of the story being "Issunboushi".I've spent a lot of time translating the above lines and this is what I could make out -

Once upon a time there lived a baby.... grand mother and grand father..... god..... the length of the little finger..... was born

As you can see, it is a pretty shoddy translation, apart from that, could anyone explain what "suru to" means. I've checked my dictionary and it says "and;then" but I don't see how that stitches in with the sentence.

[sei]

I also have that little book.

You're interpreting the beginning wrong. いない meaning something like "doesn't exist". So, the sentence, in my opinion, approximates more to "Once upon a time, an old man and an old lady that had no children, asked God, and a boy the size of a pinky was born."

I know it sounds weird, and I use punctuation where it probably shouldn't be. But I found that sentence too long (considering it lacks any sort of punctuation) and so that was the only way I could understand it.

I hope this helps.

[warun]

^Thanks for clearing that out, makes perfect sense now.
Could you explain what "suru to" means?

[sei]

What you found in your dictionary seems ok. More accurately would probably be "thereupon", "and then" (both words used together as an expression).

I don't know much about it, but from what I've read and other dictionaries' entries as well, that makes sense to me.

Edit: In my sentence from before, the すると was the "and" in "[...]asked God, and (then) a boy the size of a pinky was born." Makes sense?

[warun]

^Oh, I get it now.
I guess I need to work harder on translation

Edit: How do I type in hiragana?

[sei]

There are some threads discussing this. But here is the most important link (I think):

http://thejapanesepage.com/w/index.php?title=IME

[Ongakuka]

する(or any other verb)+ と is a conditional. 'when' or 'if' *verb* occurs.

[warun]

One more thing, my dictionary says "inai" means - within;in
How can it be "doesn't exist"?

[amochan]

One more thing, my dictionary says "inai" means - within;in
How can it be "doesn't exist"?

That inai is a different inai (以内)
This "not exist" "inai" is the negative form of "iru", which means to exist!

[warun]

^Okay, it looks like my vocabulary improved today.
Thanks guys!

[warun]

Jisama baasama oira miyako o mitekimasu.

grandpa and grandma.... nephew's..... city........

Hey,
As you can see I'm back with yet another query from the same book so I came back to this thread.
I haven't been able to figure out the meaning of "mitekimasu", it wasn't there in the dictionary.
And if the first two words mean "granpa and grandma", why doesn't it have a "to" in between them?


As you can see, I am facing some difficulties trying to translate so I was wondering if I could get some tips rather than just looking up for the meanings in the dictionary which is becoming quite a hectic task at the moment.

[amochan]

The sentence translates into: "Grandpa, grandma, I'm going to see the capital / city." (assuming that it is jiisama)

I think in English, it's also common not to put "and" between "grandpa" and "grandma".

"Oira" is "I".

"Mite kimasu" is two verbs. ~te kimasu literally means "to do something and come back"; you use it to say you'll go somewhere and do something. (cf. "itte kimasu")

I think that perhaps you have a hard time translating because maybe you don't know much Japanese grammar? It is very hard to look up the dictionary if one cannot recognize the base form of a word, or other basic grammatical structures... so depending on what you are translating it for, it may be better to study grammar a bit more?

[sei]

Why don't you try reading that same tale on this site?

It's probably easier since it has a vocabulary list with each part. And you get audio as well. Then since you already know how it goes, it'd be easier to read the one you have.

http://thejapanesepage.com/ebooks/issunboushi/1

[warun]

^Thanks for the link.