Saturday, April 5, 2025

JSLL #46 - Yuki Onna, part 11

The next bit in the story is a long quote. We'll take her entire monologue in one go, along with its attribution. I'll also explain vocabulary before grammar.

「お前さんは助けてやろう。でも、今夜のことだれにも話しちゃいけないよ。もし話したら、お前さんの命はないよ。わかったね、忘れちゃいけないよ。」女はそう言って小屋を出て吹雪の中へ姿を消しました。

Sentence 1:

お前さんは助けてやろう。

おまえさんはたすけてやろう。

Vocabulary

The new word in this sentence is お前さん. The word お前 used to be a respectful way of addressing someone, but now it means the exact opposite: you consider the addressee a baby. In the form found here, with the polite ~さん suffix (meaning "Mr/Ms"), it's polite.

Kanji

There are no new kanji in this sentence.

Grammar

The verb is a ~てやる form, which as we know from earlier, indicates that the subject of the verb does a favor to someone of a lower social standing. But who is helping who?

We've seen in the past that, if there's no noun phrase marked with the subject particle が , then the topic, marked with the particle は, is also the subject. In this sentence, there's no が, and the topic of the sentence is "you," so you might think that the sentence translates to "You will save me." 

However, in this sentence, the verb is in the volitional form やろう, which translates to either "let's" or "let me." The implied subject is "I," therefore お前さん must be the recipient of the help.

Translation

I will save you.

Sentence 2:

でも、今夜のことだれにも話しちゃいけないよ。

でも、こんやのことだれにもはなしちゃいけないよ。

Vocabulary
  • でも means "however." 
  • 今夜 means "tonight"
  • だれ means "who" on its own, but something different here--see Grammar.
  • よ at the end of a sentence is an emphatic particle, often best translated as an exclamation mark.
Kanji

The only new kanji here is 夜, which is an N4 kanji occurring in 26 common words.

Grammar

今夜のこと literally means "the things of tonight." A better translation should be "what happens tonight" or "tonight's events."

だれ ("who") combines with にも. だれも means "anyone, everyone," but combined with a negative verb, it means "nobody, no one." The に in between is because the verb is 話す ("to talk, to tell"), so "nobody, no one" is whom you shouldn't tell.

The verb form 話しちゃいけない is one of several verb endings that mean "shouldn't, must not." 

Translation

However, you must not speak to anyone about tonight's events!

Sentence 3:
もし話したら、お前さんの命はないよ。

もしはなしたら、おまえさんのいのちはないよ。

Vocabulary
  • もし means "if"
  • 命 means "life"
  • ない means "not"
Kanji

命 is an N3 kanji that occurs in 29 common words.

Grammar

This sentence introduces another conditional form: the ~たら ending after a masu-stem. (話す has the masu-form 話します, and we replace ます with たら. (Note how the presence of the word もし "if" doesn't eliminate the need for a conditional form. The differences between the ~ば conditional we learned earlier and the ~たら conditional used here are subtle and outside the scope of this post.

The ending 命はない basically means "there's no life" but (especially combined with the お前さん before it) it more means "you will die."

Translation

If you tell anyone, you'll die!

Sentence 4:

わかったね、忘れちゃいけないよ。

わかったね、わすれちゃいけないよ。

Vocabulary

忘れる means "to forget."

Kanji

忘 is an N3 kanji that occurs in only 4 common words.

Grammar

わかった is the plain form of 分かりました, which means "Understood." This is often said in response to someone telling you what to do, but here, it's "It's understood, no?"

Translation

You understand, don't you? You mustn't forget!

Sentence 5:

女はそう言って小屋を出て吹雪の中へ姿を消しました。

おんなはそういってこやをでてふぶきのなかへすがたをけしました。

Vocabulary

姿を消す is an idiomatic expression that means "to vanish, to disappear." Literally, it means "to delete one's appearance, to erase one's form"

Kanji

姿 is an N1 kanji that occurs in 4 common words.
消 is an N3 kanji that occurs in 34 common words.

Translation

Thus spoke the woman, and she left the hut and vanished into the blizzard.




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