Let’s Take Sentences Apart (1)

The following sentence is taken from a simplified version of the story Yuki Onna 雪女 (Snow Woman), a very famous Japanese ghost story, written by the Japanese poet Sōgi (1421–1502). This sentence appears at the beginning of the story:

二人はいつも渡し船に乗って川を渡り、離れた森へ木を切りに行っていました。

The particles in green help to break down a sentence into bite-sized pieces. What particles do you see in that sentence? There are six in total. Let’s make a cut after each particle to analyze the sentence further:

二人は (futari wa)

いつも渡し船に乗って (itsumo watashi bune ni notte)

川を渡り、(kawa wo watari,)

離れた森へ (hanareta mori he)

木を (ki wo)

切りに (tori ni)

行っていました。(itteimashita)

We have four different particles in this sentence: the topic marker は (wa), the two particles for directions or verb of movements に (ni) and へ (he) – which we’ll treat as the same for now – and the direct object marker を (wo).

二人は (futari wa): the thing that becomes the topic through the particle は is what stands before it: 二人 (the two). So we know, the information that follows refers to “the two” (in this case, the lumberjacks Minokichi and Mosaku).

いつも渡し船に乗って (itsumo watashi bune ni notte): いつも (always) 渡し船 (ferryboat) + particle に for the verb of movement 乗る (to get on). This verb is in the te-form and thus becomes 乗って. Up to this point we don’t know whether the whole sentence is written in the past or present, because the te-form itself doesn’t have a tense. We’ll only find it out at the very end of the sentence.

川を渡り(kawa wo watari): 川 (river) becomes the direct object through the particle を. That’s why we know, that somebody (= the two) will “do” something “to” the river. In this case they cross (渡る) the river with the ferryboat.

離れた森へ (hanareta mori he): 離れる (to be distant or separated) together with 森 (forest) forms a relative clause, which means that the thing that is distant is the forest: the distant forest. Because of the particle for directions へ we know that some sort of movement towards that forest must follow…

木を (ki wo): But before this movement happens, we get yet another information about what they are going to do in the forest: 木 (tree) becomes the direct object through the particle を, so we already know that something is going to happen to a tree or trees (in Japanese, plural and singular are generally not distinguished; therefore, it could be ‘tree’ or ‘trees’).

切りに (tori ni): 切り (here: to cut down) is followed by particle に for directions or movements.

行っていました(itteimashita): and finally we have our verb of movement, which is 行く (to go) in this case. Now we also know that the whole sentence is in the past, because 行く is in its past continuous form.

Let’s put everything together!

‘The two always took a ferryboat across the river to cut down trees in a distant forest.’

Written by Jannick Scherrer