I’m reading the book 大きなかに from Aozora Bunko and have some questions.
“おじいさんは三里ばかり隔たった,”
“三里” is a place, right? A village name or something?
“ すっかり仕度をして、これから出てゆこうとしたおじいさんは、”
“出てゆこう” seems to be translated as “tried to get out”. Would that mean, then, that something like “買ってゆこう” would mean “tried to buy”?
Also, what does the whole sentence mean? I’m picturing a man laden with luggage etc. struggling to get out of a house, is this what the sentence is trying to say?
I will probably keep posting to this thread as I move through the book. Thanks for the help!
I like to add that this isn’t the “try to” like when we say “I will try to get it done by tomorrow” or “I tried to pass the exam”. Or maybe it can also be that, but that’s not how I interpret it. When we say “I tried to pass the exam”, I interpret it as that it is an open question if I succeeded or not. But that’s not what going on with the ojii-san in this sentence. Unless he for other reasons is hindered from getting out, we should expect that he is getting out. What the sentence is saying is that ojii-san was in the very beginning stage of performing that action. So it’s closer to “about to get out”. Disclaimer: I don’t study grammar, so I’m not so confident in this as I might sound and I’m prepared to change my mind at any time.
I found this
This provides more context. It’s not that Grandfather was so loaded down with provisions that he couldn’t get out the door. It’s because Tarou stops him with his question that we get 出てゆこうとした.
Translation: “Grandfather, when will you come home?” asked Tarou. Grandfather who was prepared to tackle the journey and on his way out the door was halted by Tarou’s question. Smiling broadly, he turned to Tarou and said, “I’ll be home in a flash–just before dinner.”
「きっと、おじいさんは、帰ってきなさる。それまで 自分は起きて待っているのだ。」と、心にきめて、暗くなってしまってからも、その夜にかぎって、 太郎は、床の中へ入って 眠ろうとはせずに、いつまでも、ランプの下にすわって起きていたのでした。
What do the bolded words mean?
I’ve actually found a thread where this exact phrase is discussed on these forums, so I’ll linked it directly:
As for these words,
かぎって is just the てform of かぎる、which means “to be restricted, to be limited”, so この夜にかぎって would mean “only for tonight”, or something.
はせず: ok so the は here is the particle wa and it contrasts the 眠ろうとせずに with the next sentence. せず here is the ず conjugation of する. せずに means the same as しないで in modern Japanese. 眠ろうとする is the “volitional + to suru” conjugation which means “to try to …” so in the end 眠ろうとはせずに would mean something like “without trying to sleep, instead(this is from the contrasting は)…”
いつまでも means “forever, for good, eternally, as long as one likes, indefinitely, no matter what”
So, as a whole, “眠ろうと はせず に、 いつまでも 、ランプの下にすわって起きていたのでした。” would mean
"Without trying to sleep, instead (he) always sat awake at the top of the ramp(lamp maybe?).
太郎は、小 便に起きました。そして、戸を開けて外を見ますと、いつのまにか、空はよく晴れていました。月はなかったけれど、星影が降るように、きらきらと光っていました。
I don’t get why there is the か here. I understand いつのまに to mean something like “at the time”(?) and I’m confused about what the か is doing?
太郎は、きつねの嫁入りのはなしを聞いていました。いまあちらの野原で、その宴会が開かれているのでないかと 思いました。
I’m trying to get a grasp of this part… here’s my confused translation:
“Tarou had heard the story of the fox wedding. Now, in the fields out there, that wasn’t happening, was it? He thought.”
Is this a reference to a folk tale or something?
For context, in the previous passage, he saw a lot of candles being lit in the distance (not completely sure though).
Wouldn’t that just be “jisho links” as opposed to “mine”? I’m not doing anything special. Just copying and pasting the page that I was looking at myself. But perhaps doing it inline will make it cooperate. いつの間にか
EDIT: Yeah, that one works and the other one doesn’t, even though they’re the same. So it’s just Discourse’s “blockquote link” thing I guess.
I say “your jisho links” because I think it’s the second time I’ve seen it happen to you, but I (and other people) post them all the time (even in blockquotes: Let's talk 日本語 (beginner +) - #15 by Kazzeon), and I’ve never seen it be a problem.
Edit: Well, you are correct, that “atsui” was specifically to get the two types of hot, but yeah, if you have kanji it seems to go a little crazy.
Well, I notice you have “atsui” and not あつい. Is that how you searched it up on Jisho? The blockquote thing probably deals with romaji better than Japanese characters, but I search in hiragana or kanji by habit.
In any case, now I know not to post the blockquotes with Japanese characters, so thanks for pointing it out.
みんなが 堅い皮を破って、 肉を食べようとしますと、そのかには、まったく見かけによらず、中には肉もなにも入っていずに、からっぽになっているやせたかにでありました。
What is the いず doing to the sentence? Like how does it change the meaning?