This kind of thing is considered absolutely awful writing in English, and yet it's so frequent in Japanese literature!
For example, here's a sentence I've come across doing the translation for the competition:
Quote:
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あずかっていたというときこえはよいが、山岸が若狭へ 疎開したいといってきたので、村の農家を借りてやった だけのことなのだが、この友人は、疎開して三日目に召 集令がきて、横須賀の海兵団に入ったが、出発時に、あ とのことをよろしく頼むといって出たので、私は、細君 と子二人を、とにかく、村に住まわせて、援護してやら ねばならない場所だった。
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That is one sentence. How can one even juggle this much information in one's head at one time? "...but...because...but....but...because..." Argh!
Depending on how I end up rendering this in English, it might even be
multiple paragraphs of text in English! That is, if I can figure out who is being drafted into the military, the speaker or Yamagishi!
I just thought good speakers might get a kick out of witnessing my pain, beginners might see that they need to work doubly hard to become skilled, and intermediates might be similarly humbled by our common inability to read this sentence despite recognizing even 100% of the words and grammar structures contained within.
It's no wonder Japan demolishes the west in so many standardized tests of academic excellence—if your population is trained to hold this much syntax in the subconscious at one time, you must all have been molded into geniuses!
Edit Reading this sentence, what I pull from it is: the Yamagishi [family] needed to evacuate (Tokyo) to Wakase, so the speaker arranged for a rental house for them. However, Mr. Yamagishi got conscripted into the military after only three days in Wakase. When he left, he asked the speaker to continue on with the renting, and the speaker ended up having to protect/look after the wife and kids.
The first part of the phrase (あずかっていたというと〜) is completely baffling to me, though. 預かっていたというと聞こえは良い means nothing to me. I'm about 90% sure I'm parsing it incorrectly, though, as indicated by my attempt to put kanji in the sentence. This is a good example of why I maintain that Japanese with kanji is much easier to understand than Japanese without kanji.