ほうそうごっこ

[podstawek]

Hi,

I'm reading a very simple children book in Japanese. There is a short story there about kids singing songs. While I do understand most of the text (very simple dialogs, even for me), I have troubles with the very first sentence which goes:

ほうそうごっこしげるさんが、いいました。

And there goes a quote which is perfectly clear, as is the rest of the text. (「子どものじかんです。はじめは、よしこさんおうたです。よしこさん、どうぞう。」。。。などなど。

Could you please help me with the first sentence? Do I understand this correctly as something along the lines of:

"While we played radio together, Mr. Shigeru said:"

?

Thanks everyone!

 

[epigene]

Hello, podstawek!

I checked and found that the title of the book is ほうそうごっこ. That means that ほうそうごっこ should be set apart as title. The text begins with "Shigeru-san..." That should make things clear!

BTW, I found that the illustrations of the book is by Chihiro Iwasaki, a famoust artist in Japan. Your book must look lovely. Keep it safe, because it is already out of print in Japan!
Chihiro Art Museum

 

[epigene]

I forgot to add that "-gokko" is the term to describe "(make-believe) game." So, your translation of "playing radio together" is correct.

 

[podstawek]

Yes, this has helped a lot, thank you epigene! What I have here is not a book of this title; this is just a title of one of the chapters. It is set with an identical type as the rest of the test, hence the confusion.

The entire book is titled "しょうがく しんこくご 一ねん下" and it is an elementary reading book with various stories-chapters, including the " ほうそうごっこ".

Illustrations are beautiful, but they are not Iwasaki's (at least I cannot find her name anywhere).