JSLL #19 - Urashima Tarou - Nineteenth sentence

 The nineteenth sentence of 浦島太郎 teaches us a specific grammar rule. Here's the sentence:

それから、浦島太郎は竜宮城できれいな魚たちの踊りを見たり、お酒を飲んだり、すばらしいごちそうを食べたり、乙姫様と楽しくお話したりして、夢のような毎日を過ごしました。

それから、うらしまたろうはりゅうぐうじょうできれいなさかなたちのおどりをみたり、おさけをのんだり、すばらしいごちそうをたべたり、おとひめさまとたのしくおはなししたりして、ゆめのようなまいにちをすごしました。

Sore kara, Urashima Tarou ha ryuuguujou de kireina sakana-tachi no odori wo mitari, osake wo nondari, subarashii gochisou wo tabetari, oto-hime-sama to tanoshiku o-hanashi shitari shite, yume no you na mainichi wo sugoshimashita.

What you'll notice is that this is a sequence of verbs ending in a ～たり (or ～だり) ending, with the last one followed by a te-form of する. After that, there's a final clause:

見たり、飲んだり、食べたり、話したりして

This sequence is a verb enumeration, and should be translated as such. We can declare each part ending in ～たり as a separate clause.

Before the clauses start, there's the introduction それから meaning "And then, after that."

The first clause consists entirely of known words and grammatical constructions. The only new word is 踊り, which means "dance" (as a noun). The kanji is an N2 kanji that occurs in just 5 common words, all related to dancing. See if you can figure out that the first clause reads:

"Urashima Tarou watched the dances of the pretty fish in the Palace of the Dragon King"

The second clause is お酒を飲んだり which is the verb 飲んだり, a form of the verb 飲む, "to drink" with the object お酒, which is the word 酒 (さけ, sake) meaning "sake" or "alcohol" with a polite prefix. The kanji 酒 is an N3 kanji occurring in 17 common words, all related to alcholic beverages.

So it means "[Tarou] drank sake."

Clause number three reads すばらしいご馳走を食べたり, which ends in 食べたり, which comes from 食べる, "to eat."食 is an N5 kanji occurring in 63 common words, mostly related to eating. The object of the verb is すばらしいご馳走, the i-adjective すばらしい ("wonderful, splendid, magnificent"), normally written with kanji. The noun is ご馳走, which means "gorgeous dinner, excellent food, delicacies, special dishes, feast." The two kanji are:

• 馳 is a kanji that's not part of the roughly 2000 jouyou kanji taught in schools, but are part of the jinmeiyou kanji used in some names. It only occurs in 3 common words, 2 of which are the common expressions to use to thank someone for a meal, ごちそうさま and ごちそうさまでした, both typically written without kanji. 
• 走 is an N4 kanji occurring in 23 common words, most of which are associated with running or rapid movement.

So it means "[Tarou] ate magnificent food."

On to clause 4, the last of the enumerations: 乙姫様と楽しくお話したりして. The name of Her Majesty Princess Oto is followed by と, which means "with" in this context. 楽しく is the く-version of the i-adjective 楽しい, "fun," "enjoyable." The く-version turns the adjective into an adverb. The kanji 楽. The kanji is N4 and occurs in 41 common words.

What follows is the last たり-form, お話たり. This is the politeness prefix お combined with the te-form of the verb 話す, "to talk, to converse, to chat." This kanji is N5 and part of 39 common words. It's all about talking and conversation. To signal the end of the enumeration, the last たり-form is followed by a form of する, namely, して. There's no need to translate it, it's just a marker.

So everything up to now translates to:

"And then, Urashima Tarou watched the dances of the pretty fish in the Palace of the Dragon King, drank sake, ate magnificent food, and talked enjoyably with Her Majesty Princess Oto, and..."

The last clause is not part of the enumeration: 夢のような毎日を過ごしました。It ends in the polite past form of 過ごす, "to spend," which takes some measurement of time as an object. As it happens, the object here is 毎日, "every day," a construction we saw earlier. The kanji 過 is new: it's an N3 kanji occurring in 39 common words, most of them related to passing (time or distance) or with excess.

Before 毎日, which is used as a noun here, it says 夢のような. のような, which translates to "resembling" or "-like" and connects two nouns. The word before this construction is 夢, which means "dream." All 5 common words in which this N3 kanji occurs are related to dreams. So this last part means: "[Tarou] spent a dreamlike every day" or, more accurately "[Tarou] spent every day as if in a dream."

Putting it all together, sentence 19 reads:

"And then, Urashima Tarou watched the dances of the pretty fish in the Palace of the Dragon King, drank sake, ate magnificent food, and talked enjoyably with Her Majesty Princess Oto, and spent every day as if in a dream."