What does Minokichi say to Oyuki? The entire set of sentences that follows is enclosed in Japanese quotation marks 「 and 」. Note that there's no attribution (that is, it's not explicitly mentioned who is speaking), neither before nor after the quote. This is fairly unusual in English, but quite common in Japanese.
Sentence 1:
おい、お雪、俺は昔、お前のように美しい女に会ったことがある。
おい、おゆき、いれはむかし、おまえのようにうつくしいおんなにあったことがある。
Vocabulary
- おい means "Hey" --much like the British word "oi."
- 俺 means "I" (explained in more detail under Grammar)
- お前 means "you" (explained in more detail under Grammar)
- 会う means "to meet"
Kanji
俺 is a jouyou kanji, but not in any N level. It occurs in 2 common words.
会 is an N4 kanji that occurs in 132 words.
Grammar
We've previously learned that the word 私 can be pronounced わたし or わたくし. Both mean "I" but the second version is more polite. But the number of words for "I" is much bigger than just these two words, and specific words are used for men vs women and/or young people versus old people. The version used in this sentence, 俺, is specifically male, and fairly rough and impolite.
Similarly, お前 is (these days) a very informal and intimate way to refer to someone else. It can also be used disrespectfully. But note that when paired with さん, as the snow woman did in the beginning of the story, it's polite again.
ことがある after a past tense verb denotes a recounting of an event. It doesn't need to be translated, but a translation could be "It happened that..." Note that while the event in the past, ある is in the non-past. When phrased as a question, it translates to "Have you ever...?" For example 日本に行くことがありますか means "Have you ever been to Japan?"
Translation
"Hey Oyuki, a long time ago I met a woman who was beautiful like you."
Sentence 2:
お前とそっくりで、色がすごく白かった。
おまえとそっくりで、いろがすごくしろかった。
Vocabulary
- そっくり is an adverb that means "entirely, completely"
- 色 means "color"
- すごい means "terrible, dreadful; amazing, wonderful, terrific" (not unlike the double meaning of "terrible/terribly" in English).
Kanji
色 is N4 and occurs in 48 words. Many of these are color-related, like 茶色 (ちゃいろ, "brown," literally "teacolor"), but also very common is 色々 (いろいろ, a na-adjective that means "various, different kinds of").
Grammar
お前と - the particle と here literally means "with," so "with you." A proper translation is "like you."
で is here the te-form of です. I think.
白かった is the past tense of the adjective 白い, "white."
Translation
"Like you, she was completely of a terrifically white color."
Sentence 3:
吹雪で、船頭小屋に泊まったときだ。
Vocabulary
We learned 泊める, "give shelter" previously; 泊まる is the intransitive version, "to shelter at."
Translation
"It was when I was sheltering in the blizzard, at the ferryman's hut."
Actually, because Japanese has no words for "a" or "the," it's unclear if Minokichi is referring back to this event, which he talked about previously, or if he's mentioning this for the first time. So an equally valid translation is:
"It was when I was sheltering in a blizzard, at a ferryman's hut."
Sentence 4:
何度も夢かと思ったが、茂作さんが殺されたんだから、やっぱりあの女は雪女だったんだろう。
なんどもゆめかおもったが、もさくさんがころされたんだから、やっぱりあのおんなはゆきおんなだったんだろう。
Vocabulary
殺す means "to kill"
やっぱり is an adverb, "as expected, sure enough"
Kanji
殺 is an N3 kanji occurring in 20 common words.
Grammar
The noun 夢 followed by かと思った means "I thought it was a dream." The verb 思う always takes と, which normally translates to "that." The particle か in this case translates to something like "whether." There's a sense here of "I wonder whether it was a dream" but the verb 思う makes clear which way the doubt goes.
The verb form 殺された is new: it's the passive form 殺される, put in the past tense. Because the subject is 茂作さん, the part between the two commas translates to "Mosaku was killed."
The particle から after a verb clause means "therefore, so." You can also translate XからY as "Because X, Y."
Finally adding だろう (or in this case んだろう) after a clause indicates conjecture, a sense that the clause is probably true or "must be" true in the speaker's estimation.
Translation
"I've often thought it was a dream, but Mosaku was killed, you see, so it must be that that woman was the Snow Woman, as I suspected."
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