JSLL #13 - Urashima Tarou - Twelfth sentence

 The twelfth sentence of the story is a quote. Buckle up, because there is much to learn.

「わたくしは、前に助けていただいた亀でございます。お礼に海の底にある竜宮城にご案内いたしましょう。」と、亀が言いました。

「わたくしは、まえにたすけていただいたかめでございます。おれいにうみのそこにあるりゅうぐうじょうにごあんないいたしましょう。」と、かめがいいました。

"Watakushi ha, mae ni tasukete itadaita kame de gozaimasu. o-rei ni umi no soko ni aru ryuuguujou ni go-annai itashimashou." to, kame ga iimashita.

The quote, enclosed in the Japanese quotation marks 「 and 」, is followed by と、亀が言いました。which just translates to "The turtle said, '...' " The new kanji here is 言, an N4 kanji occurring in 73 words, all related to speech, words, language etc. Note also that the bottom half of the kanji is 口, which is itself a kanji that means "mouth."

The quotation itself needs a little overall explanation about the type of language being used.

First, we've seen the regular polite forms of verbs being used throughout the story so far. For example, "said" above is 言いました, the past form of 言います, which is the polite form of "to say." The informal form, also called plain form or dictionary form, would be 言う, past tense 言った。You use the informal form when you're on equal footing with the other person and/or feel relaxed around them. The dictionary form is also consistently used in relative clauses, as you may have noticed.

What we see here is a whole other of politeness in the turtle's speech, expressed in a variety of ways. The overall name for this type of speaking is keigo, which translates to the rather unfamiliar word "honorifics" in English. Keigo breaks down into three types: teineigo (extra polite), sonkeigo (respectful), and kenjougo (humble or modest). These seem very similar to us, but they are subtly different: respectful language elevates the listener, while humble language puts the speaker down.

These honorifics affect a variety of parts of the language: not just verbs, but also nouns and pronouns, as we see here.

Right off the bat, わたくし is a more formal form of わたし, the word most Japanese learners learn in their first lesson: "I." Both are typically written in kanji form, but because the kanji is the same for both words, 私, the kana is needed here to make it explicit. The は particle shows "I" to be the topic (and the subject) of the sentence.

前に means "before" (in this case as in "earlier") and uses the kanji 前. It's an N5 kanji occurring in 85 common words words.

Next is the te-form 助けて (助けて, tasukete) which we know is a form of "to save," "to help." After the te-form is いただいた, which is the plain past tense of いただく. This verb is a humble verb, and it can replace any of the following non-humble equivalents: 食べる, to eat; 飲む, to drink; and もらう, to receive. Eating and drinking make little sense here, and ~てもらう is a special ending for a verb: you use it when the speaker receives the benefit of some action (expressed by the verb before it) from the listener. This is practically intranslatable into English, although something like "I had the pleasure of..." or "I was fortunate enough to..." would come close. So 助けてもらった would mean something like "I was lucky enough to receive your help," while 助けていただいた means the same thing, except said in a humble way. This is what people mean when they say that Japanese is untranslatable.

The whole clause 前に助けていただいた comes before 亀 ("turtle"), so this is a relative clause: "the turtle who had the good fortune to receive your help before".

What follows is でございます which is a very polite and formal form of です, to be.

So, in short, the first sentence uttered by the turtle is "I am the turtle who had the good fortune to receive your help earlier." A lot of humility, formality and politeness gets lost in translation, but it can't be helped.

The second sentence spoken by the turtle is, in its entirety:

お礼に海の底にある竜宮城にご案内いたしましょう。

お礼 (おれい, o-rei) is a polite/humble noun that means "gratitude." Polite nouns in Japanese always start with お- or with ご-. Because thanking is something you generally do in humility, the お- prefix is pretty much mandatory. お礼に means "in gratitude," "as thanks."

海の底に, as we've seen before, means "at the bottom of the sea" or "on the seabed." 

ある means "to be," but this is a different verb from です (which also translates as "to be"). Explaining this would make this very long post even longer, so I'll explain it in a separate post.

海の底にある acts as a qualifier for the noun that follows, so it translates as "who/which is at the bottom of the sea."

That noun consists of three kanji in a row: 竜宮城 (pronounced りゅうぐうじょう, ryuuguujou). The first two kanji are N1 and the third one is N2, so we can say with some confidence that this is not a very common word. And the dictionary confirms it: this word is not marked as common. The translation in the dictionary not only gives the translation "Palace of the Dragon King" but also mentions that this is the palace from the Urashima Tarou story. You are unlikely to encounter this anywhere else than in this story. Everything points to this being a forgettable word consisting of forgettable kanji.

But let's look at the three kanji anyway:

• 竜 means dragon, which occurs in 4 common words
• 宮 means shrine or palace, and occurs in 12 common words
• 城 means castle, and occurs in 3 common words
• The combination 宮城 means "Imperial Palace"

The whole thing is followed by に, again "in". So now we have "in the Palace of the Dragon King, which is at the bottom of the sea."

Next it says ご案内 (ごあんない, go-annai). ご- is again a politeness prefix for the noun 案内. This means "guidance, leading the way, leading around." It consists of two kanji:

• 案, an N1 kanji occurring in 25 common words, some of which have a connotation of planning.
• 内, an N3 kanji occurring in 95 common words, most related to contents, containing etc.

案内 is what's called a "suru"-verb: a noun that can be (and very often is) followed by a form of the verb する, literally "to do." So 案内する means "to guide, to show around." But here, the next verb is いたしましょう, which doesn't look like する at all. Guess what, it's the politeness thing again: the very polite/humble form of する is いたす, of which いたしましょう is a form. Which form exactly? Well, いたします would be the regular polite form of いたす, but the しょう at the end means "let's X" or "let me X." Putting it all together, ご案内いたしましょう means (humbly), "Let me show you around."

Now let's put everything together. Overall, the turtle's speech is very formal, polite and humble. This register of formality is almost impossible to translate without adding words, interjections etc, and even then it still doesn't really convey exactly what's being said. So I'm not really going to try.

Here's my translation:

The turtle said, "I am the turtle who was fortunate enough to receive your help in the past. As thanks, allow me to show you around the Palace of the Dragon King, which is at the bottom of the sea.

A much less literal translation, which tries to capture the humility and formality, would be something like: 

The turtle said, "I, your humble servant, am the turtle whom befell the great fortune of receiving your help previously. As a humble token of my gratitude, grant me the opportunity to show you around the Palace of the Dragon King, which is located at the bottom of the sea."