Translating a story

[png]

First of all: Hello everybody! Ore wa png

Im all green at japanese, but I think the culture and lang. is very interesting.
Im trying to learn japanese, and i have decided to translate this little mukasi mukashi.

I looked up mukashi, and found out that it means something like on tale or fairy tale.
I dont know how to type japanese letters so here goes:

Mukashi mukashi aru mura ni,
Mukashi mukashi = old tale?, aru mura = some village? ni = 2

ojiisan to obaasan ga
grandfather and grandmother, ga = ?

Then comes theese letter, I dont know where to split them:
sundeorimashita

I know mashita is something youend a sentence with.
su = a nest, but a word cant start with "n" right? And the dictionary cant find either: sun, sunde, sundeo, sunderi or sundeorimashita.

Im all green at this, so please help me

Also tell me if something above is not correct.

Here is the link to the story. So far, im 3 lines ^^ :

http://www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp/ ... /mukashi1/

its the 1 story from the left.

[mandolin]

Format:

Japanese
Mostly literal and/or breakdown explanation
"Natural sounding" english equivalent

Mukashi mukashi
Long time, long time
A long time ago....

aru mura ni
aru mura = some village
ni = place where the verb happens
In a village,

ojiisan to obaasan ga
ojiisan = grandfather, also an endearing term for any old man (familiar)
obaasan = same as ojiisan, only female.
to = you guessed correctly. Here, it means "and"
ga = particle, denoting the focus of the sentence

sundeorimashita
sunde - "te" form of the verb "sumu", to live/reside
mashita - past form of the polite verb suffix -masu. Not exactly sure how "ori" fits in. This is also your verb, so it says what happened in the place marked by "ni" earlier.

were living

mukashi mukashi, aru mura ni ojiisan to obaasan ga sundeorimashita.

A long time ago, in a small village, there lived an old man and an old woman.

[Harisenbon]

png wrote:
First of all: Hello everybody! Ore wa png

Welcome to the boards.
Just a little note. You shouldn't introduce yourself with Ore. It's very rude and will put off a lot of people.

watashi ha png desu.

is better.

[AJBryant]

FOr the record, this is the start of a metric buttload of old Japanese tales. It seems every village was required by custom to have an old man and old woman who, typically, had never had kids but wanted them, and....

BTW, "Mukashi mukashi" is the Japanese equivalent of "once upon a time."

Tony

[mandolin]

yeah, I know mukashi mukashi is more like once upon a time, but I was trying to give him something more literal... for the sake of helping him understand it all together.

Can anyone comment on the "ori" part in sundeorimashita? Or is that the part where it gets into classical japanese?

I have no problem just regarding it as a set phrase, I'm just curious.

EDIT:

Hm.. would it be sunde o-rimashita, as in the 'o' signifies an honorific on a verb?

Just guessing now.

[Harisenbon]

おります is the polite ending to a phrase. You use it when trying to appear humble.
Example:
垂ｵ訳ありませんが，その意味はちょっと違うと思っております。

[sgtkwol]

I'm just proud that I was able to open such a can of worms. Even these stories are tough for beginners like me. I am rotating between kanji, finishing up katakana, and these stories. I am seeing how kanji can make Japanese much more readable.

[png]

Wow thanks everybody! This is so much more obvious now im sure you will be asked by more of me later!

Thanks again!

[AJBryant]

yeah, I know mukashi mukashi is more like once upon a time, but I was trying to give him something more literal... for the sake of helping him understand it all together.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. That was an FYI for png, as I suspect if he keeps reading these stories he'll be seeing it a lot.

Tony