JSLL #4 - Urashima Tarou - Third sentence

 Here's the third sentence from Urashima Tarou:

ある日、浦島太郎は海から帰る途中、浜で子供たちが集まって騒いでいるのを見ました。

The sentence starts with ある日, meaning "one day, on a certain day." The construction is explained in JSLL #2, and the kanji 日 is explained in the previous JSLL post.

Next is the topic 浦島太郎, Urashima Tarou, followed by the topic marker は. The only noteworthy thing here is that the topic is repeated in this sentence, even though it's the same as in the previous sentence. Either this was done deliberately for the audience (foreign readers or children, or both), but I don't think this is typical practice in Japanese. You would just omit the topic.

Next is 海から帰る途中、where 途中 (とちゅう, tochuu) is an adverb meaning "en route, on the way." It consists of two kanji:

• 途, an N3 kanji occurring in 23 common words. It has connotations or road, route etc.
• 中, an N5 kanji occurring in 150 common words. It conveys "middle" or "inside" depending on context.

Modifying this adverb is 海から帰る. The word 海, "sea," which we discussed earlier, is followed by the particle から meaning "from" and the verb 帰る (かえる, kaeru), "to return." This verb is used specifically to refer to returning to one's home or to one's home base, for example, back to the office from a business trip, or back to HQ after a mission. 

So the adverbial as a whole means "en route returning from the sea," or, more logically, "on his way back from the sea." 

Next is the main clause, whose main verb at the end is 見ました. This comes from 見る, "to see." 見 is an N5 kanji occurring in 123 common words, mostly associated with seeing (also metaphorically, such as in 意見 meaning "opinion" or more similarly "viewpoint." 見ました is the polite past tense and it takes an object that is followed by the を particle. That is, the object of seeing is the entire phrase 浜で子供たちが集まって騒いでいるの. This is a verb phrase follow by the nominalizer particle の. This particle is needed to make the verb phrase usable as an object.

So the sentence we have so far is, "One day, on his way back from the sea, Urashima Tarou saw..."

The verb phrase that is the missing object is itself complex, and breaks down into a number of parts.

First there's a location, 浜で. This is the noun 浜 (はま, hama), which means "beach" or "seashore," followed by the particle で meaning "in, on, at." で is used if the verb indicates an action rather than a state.

The kanji 浜 is N1 and occurs in only 6 common words. It always means something like "shore." It's also the second kanji of the place name 横浜, Yokohama.

Next is 子供たちが, with the particle が indicating that this is the subject of the verb in the clause. That subject is 子供たち, the noun 子供 (こども, kodomo, "child") followed by the plural suffix たち, so "children." Note that たち is not used very often, and that you should absolutely not infer that a noun is singular if there's no たち present (like you would in English). 

The kanji 子 is an N5 kanji, which also means "child" on its own. It occurs in 131 common words, which often have nothing to do with children.

The kanji 供 is an N3 kanji occurring in just 14 common words. It often has a connotation of submitting or providing something.

After が is a verb in the -te form, which means that at least one other verb will follow. The verb is 集まって (あつまって, atsumatte), which means "to gather, to come together, to assemble." Because this verb can only apply to multiple people or things (one person cannot assemble), the たち suffix after 子供 seems especially unnecessary. This may again be a concession made for foreign speakers or children.

The second and last verb in the clause 騒いでいる (さわいでいる, suwaideiru), which is the ~ている　form of すわぐ, to make noise, to be noisy, to make a racket. The use of the ~ている here implies a progressive (= "making noise, being noisy").

So the sentence in full is something like, "One day, on his way back from the sea, Urashima Tarou saw children on the beach gathered together making noise."