~ いっすんぼうし ~ translation help please! ^.^

[AmayaSakurai]

I've decided that practicing Japanese through tanslation would be a good way for me to get a good hang on the Japanese sentence structures. So, I picked this Japanese fairy tail as my starting point, because I figured it would be a piece of cake.

Guess what? I'm stuck on the first sentence! LOL! *hopless*

Here's the sentece:

むかし　むかし　こどもが　いない　おじいさんと　お ばあさんが　かみさまに　おねがいを　すると　こうび くらいの　おとこのこが　うまれました。

The part that I cannot figure out the meaning of is こゆびくらい. little finger + black = ???

If anyone is willing to give their own translation of this sentence so that I can compare it with mine, that would be cool too! XD

I'll be posting any other translation problems with this fairy tail that I might have (probably in the 2nd sentence) here as well, so that I don't spam the forum with my questions!

Thanks ~

[berrypie]

You have mixed up くらい(kurai) and くろい(kuroi) and that's why you cannot understand.

くらい = about the size of, approximately

がんばってくださいね。

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by AmayaSakurai

I've decided that practicing Japanese through tanslation would be a good way for me to get a good hang on the Japanese sentence structures. So, I picked this Japanese fairy tail as my starting point, because I figured it would be a piece of cake.

Guess what? I'm stuck on the first sentence! LOL! *hopless*

Here's the sentece:

むかし　むかし　こどもが　いない　おじいさんと　お ばあさんが　かみさまに　おねがいを　すると　こうび くらいの　おとこのこが　うまれました。

The part that I cannot figure out the meaning of is こゆびくらい. little finger + black = ???

If anyone is willing to give their own translation of this sentence so that I can compare it with mine, that would be cool too! XD

I'll be posting any other translation problems with this fairy tail that I might have (probably in the 2nd sentence) here as well, so that I don't spam the forum with my questions!

Thanks ~

Just so you know, there are no spaces in Japanese.

[AmayaSakurai]

Oooooooooow!!! No wonder!

Thank you so much! Obviously makes perfect sense now!

[AmayaSakurai]

Just so you know, there are no spaces in Japanese.

I copy - pasted that sentence word for word from the book, and it had spaces. I know that they are not used in general, but I guess it makes it easier to read because it's all in hiragana. When too many hiragana are next to each other it makes it a little confusing, ne?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by AmayaSakurai

I copy - pasted that sentence word for word from the book, and it had spaces. I know that they are not used in general, but I guess it makes it easier to read because it's all in hiragana. When too many hiragana are next to each other it makes it a little confusing, ne?

OK. Some children's books use spaces I think. I just wanted to make sure you knew (since you're close enough to beginner-level (since you're reading children's books), I thought you might not know). We've had people post here before who did not know.

[AmayaSakurai]

Oh ok! ^.^

Thank you very much for the advice!