JSLL #28 - Urashima Tarou - Twenty-ninth sentence

Sentence 29 has medium length, novelty and complexity.

村の方に歩いていくと人がいましたが、どの人も知らない人でした。

むらのほうにあるいていくとひとがいましたが、どのひともしらないひとでした。

Mura no hou ni aruiteiku to hito ga imashita ga, dono hito mo shiranai hito deshita.

村のほうに歩いていくと This first past is a と-clause, translatable as "when" (or sometimes "whenever").

We're familiar with 村, "village," and with 方, "direction," so we can see that 村の方に means "in the direction of the village" or, less formally, "toward the village."

The verb is 歩いていく and has a ～ていく ending that we've seen before, indicating movement away from the speaker, or just generally away. I don't think it needs to be separately translated here.

The kanji 歩 is a new one: it's an N4 kanji that can be found in 28 common words, all of which are related to walking (sometimes metaphorically).

The te-form is 歩いて, which, depending on context, can be translated as "on foot" or simply as the te-form of 歩く, "to walk." So the と-clause can be translated in both of these ways:

• When he went on foot toward the village, ...
• When he walked toward the village, ...

(The reason I assumed that the subject is "he" is because the turtle probably wouldn't be walking, but rather crawling or shuffling etc. But note how the choice of words subtly tells us that the turtle is no longer with Tarou, and has presumably gone back underwater.)

The next part of the sentence is 人がいましたが、

This clause has 2 が particles. The first one, after 人, is the noun-level particle, which indicates that 人 is the subject. The second one, at the end of the clause, is the clause-level particle, which is typically translated as "but." The verb いました in between is the polite past tense of いる, "to be, to exist" (used for things with a heart, like 人, "person, people."

Although I've used 人 before when explaining certain aspects of Japanese grammar, this is actually its first occurrence in the story. One of the simplest kanji, 人 is obviously an N5 kanji, and it occurs in 234 common words, almost the highest of all. This kanji is pronounced ひと, hito, on its own, and じん (jin) or にん (nin) in most compounds.  It's not just a noun, it's also a counter, like in the title of the movie 七人の侍 (しちにんのさむらい, shichinin no samurai, "The Seven Samurai").

So the sentence up to now reads, "When he walked toward the village, there were people, but..." 

どの人も知らない人でした is the end of the sentence. The main verb でした is the polite past form of "to be." This "to be," as explained in a separate blog post ("Japanese grammar point: to be or to be, that's the question") is a copula, a coupling verb. It's a bit hard to see what is what in this clause. The subject is どの人も, which ends in the particle も, which normally means "also, too" as in 私も遊びたい ("I, too, want to play"). 

The word before 人 is どの, which fits in the pattern この (this X), その (that X), あの (that X over there). どの is the question word of the pattern, meaning "which." So does どの人も mean "which persons, too"? No. The どの...も construction is a special one, and it translates as "whichever," "any" or "every." So the subject どの人も is "whichever person," "any person," "every person." 

The predicate of でした is then 知らない人. This is again the word "person," modified by 知らない. 知らない is the negative version of 知る, "to know." This new kanji is N4 and occurs in 49 common words.

So what does 知らない人 mean? This is a phrase that shows how tricky modifying clauses can be in Japanese. 人 could be the subject of 知らない, in which case it means "a person who doesn't know." But 人 could also be the object of 知らない, in which case it means "a person he (Tarou) doesn't know" or, more generally, "an unknown person" or even "a stranger."

Based on context clues, the translation "every person was a stranger" or "every person was someone he didn't know" seems like the best translation.

The entire sentence therefore translates to:

When he walked toward the village, there were people, but everyone was someone he didn't know.