JSLL #39 - Yuki Onna, part 3

 What does the snow from the previous post portend? Maybe we'll find out next.

そして、あっという間にひどい吹雪になりました。二人は仕方なく仕事をやめて帰ろうと歩き出しました。

そして、あっというまにひどいふぶきになりまた。ふたりはしかたなくしごとをやめてかろうとあるきだしました。

In the first sentence, we learn an idiomatic expression: あっという間に. The translation for this "in a flash" or "in the blink of an eye." If we look at the literal meaning though, we first look at the word 間. There are actually three words, all written 間, with distinct pronunciations and different (but similar) meanings. In this case, it's the word pronounced ま, and it means "time, pause; space; room." Preceding this word is a qualifying clause consisting of いう ("to say"), と (the particle following the quote) and あっ, which represents an "Ah-" stopped mid-word. So the phrase means "in the time it takes to say 'Ah!'"

The verb is なる, which combines with に to mean "become." What it becomes is ひどい吹雪, the i-adjective ひどい, which here means "severe" or "extreme," followed by 吹雪 (ふぶき) of which we recognize the last kanji 雪 ("snow" on its own).  The first kanji 吹 is an N3 kanji occurring in 7 common words that means "to blow" (typically the wind). Together, it means "blizzard."

Translation: 

Then, in the time it takes to say "Ah," a terrible snowstorm started.

The second sentence is 二人は仕方なく仕事をやめて帰ろうと歩き出しました:two clauses joined by a te-form. The first half contains a new kanji 仕, occurring in two words, and a new kanji 事, which combines with the 仕. 

The phrase 仕方なく is in the dictionary as "helplessly, reluctantly, as a last resort" but it has an inner structure. 仕方 means "way, method, means, resource, course" and なく signifies a negative. So it suggests "there's no (other) way/means." The second occurrence of 仕 is in 仕事, "work" or "task."

• 仕 is an N4 kanji occurring in 37 common words
• 事 is an N4 kanji occurring in 115 common words. On its own, it's pronounced こと, and means "thing, matter, fact." Written in hiragana, it's very commonly used as a nominalizer, much like の as explained in previous posts. For example, we saw it in the previous post in the sentence ある冬の日のことです。

The verb in the te-form is やめる, "to stop" (transitive verb). So the first half of the sentence reads:

Seeing no other way, they stopped their work and...

The second half ends with the verb 歩き出しました, "[the two of them] started walking" or "[the two of them] walked out [of the forest]." Just before this is 帰ろうと, which is a new verb form of the verb 帰る ("to return, to go home") followed by the particle と. The verb form is called the volitional, and in most contexts, it's translated as "let's X" or "why don't we X." For example, 行きましょう！ is a typical exclamation, meaning "let's go!" The plain version of this would be 行こう！ 帰ろう is also a plain form. But when it's followed by と, it means something else "trying to X" or "in an effort to X."

So the entire sentence reads:

Seeing no other way, they stopped their work and walked out of the forest in an attempt to go home.