JSLL #30 - Urashima Tarou - Thirty-second and thirty-third sentences

 We're again speeding up a bit, with the finish line in sight: two sentences.

浦島太郎はすっかり困ってしまいました。その時、ふと玉手箱が目に入りました。

うらしまたろうはすっかりこまってしまいした。そのとき、ふとたまてばこがめにはいりました。

Urashima Tarou ha sukkari komatte shimaimashita. Sono toki, futo tamatebako ga me ni hairimashita.

First sentence: the topic is yet again Urashima Tarou. Next is an adverb we've seen before: すっかり ("wholly, completely"). And the verb is a polite past form of 困る, which means "to be troubled, to have difficulty, to be in a fix, to be at a loss, to be stumped, to be embarrassed." Given the context, I think "at a loss" is the best translation.

The kanji 困 is an N3 kanji that's only present in 5 common words. As for the specific verb form: this is called the ~てしまう form, here in the polite past conjugation, ～てしまいました. This can signify doing something completely and with determination, or doing it without intending to, unintentionally and regrettably. Neither seems to fit this sentence very well, so we should translate this with a neutral third meaning: to end up doing X.

So the translation of sentence 1 would be "Urashima Tarou ended up being completely at a loss."

The second sentence starts with その時, which literally means "that time." But 時 (とき, toki) is also very often used in a way that English speakers would translate with "then" or "when." In fact, その時 has its own dictionary entry with the meaning "at that moment, then, at that time." The kanji 時 is N5 and occurs in 88 common words, most of which are related to time.

ふと is an adverb that means "suddenly, casually, accidentally, incidentally, unexpectedly, unintentionally." The next word 玉手箱 is the box Tarou received, the tamatebako, and the が shows it to be the subject of the sentence. The rest of the sentence, 目に入りました, is the polite past tense of 目に入る, literally "to enter into the eye(s)." The dictionary translation is "to catch sight of, to come into view, to happen to see." In these three definitions, the subject and object differ: a person catches sight of/happens to see an object, while an object comes into view (for a person). Obviously, the correct translation is that he/Tarou caught sight of the tamatebako.

We have two new kanji here:

• 目 is (on its own) "eye" (compare it to 見る, "to see"). It's an N4 kanji occurring in 93 common words.
• 入 (not to be confused with 人) is an N5 kanji that occurs in 107 common words. Visitors of Japan may remember it from the many signs they see in, say, the subway or the train station, that say 入口 (いりぐち, iriguchi) meaning "entrance."

So the translation of sentence 2 would be "Then he suddenly caught sight of the tamatebako."

Both sentences together: 

Urashima Tarou ended up being completely at a loss. Then he suddenly caught sight of the tamatebako.