ストーブの前でOne Line of Boot Prints

Read a sample in Japanese

What you'll learn

Overnight snow stops the buses, and by the time Mori-sensei has lit the classroom stove the phone has rung twelve times: the whole class is staying home. One set of small boot prints leads to the door. The boy who made them dries his socks on the stove, and the two of them spend the morning over a sheet of paper.

Key vocabulary

Grammar points you'll meet

• Dictionary form+と N4Verb + と links two things that always go together: when the first happens, the second is simply there. Here the teacher arrives and the snow is already outside.
  森先生が学校に来ると、外はゆうべの雪で白かった。
• ～から N5から after a verb or adjective gives the reason. In speech it often comes last, tacked on after the main point, as the parent does on the phone.
  「うちの子は今日、休みます。バスが来ませんから」
• ～ている N5The て form plus いる describes what is going on now, or a habit that keeps repeating. Here it is what this boy always does.
  先生が聞いても、いつもまどを見ている子だ。
• を N5を marks the thing the verb acts on. The word right before it is what is being hung, written, taken or looked at.
  ハルトはくつしたをストーブにかけた。
• で N5で marks where an action happens, or what something is done with. Read the noun in front of it to tell the two apart.
  ストーブの前で、先生は紙を一まい出した。
• ～ていた N4The past of ～ている: something was going on for a while, rather than happening once. It is how this story holds a long, quiet moment.
  ハルトは長い間、紙を見ていた。

Cultural notes

• The classroom stoveIn snowy parts of Japan a classroom is heated by a single oil stove that the teacher lights in the morning. It doubles as a dryer: wet gloves, hats and socks go on top of it or on the rail around it, and the smell of warm wool is part of winter at school.
• A circle means correctJapanese teachers mark a right answer with a circle, 丸, and a wrong one with a slanted line or a cross. A checkmark, which means "correct" in many countries, is not used. So 丸がついた means the answer was right.
• Boots and the walk to schoolMost Japanese children walk to school rather than being driven, usually in a small group from the same neighbourhood; buses run only in rural areas. On a snowy morning that means 長靴, rubber boots, and a change of socks in the bag.

Topics & grammar

Short Storyschoolwinterchildhoodでde〜がありますga arimasu〜からkaraもmo〜ているte iruDictionary form+とdictionary form to〜ていたte ita