很久很久以前，在一座小岛上，住着一个老国王。

A long time ago, there lived an old king on a small island.

Source: Tatoeba

Sentence Composition

1 很 hěn
  1. very; quite
  2. (also, often used before an adjective without intensifying its meaning, i.e. as a meaningless syntactic element)
2 久 jiǔ (of a period of time) long
3 很 hěn
  1. very; quite
  2. (also, often used before an adjective without intensifying its meaning, i.e. as a meaningless syntactic element)
4 久 jiǔ (of a period of time) long
5 以前 yǐqián
  1. before
  2. formerly
  3. previous
  4. ago
6 在 zài
  1. to exist; to be alive
  2. (of sb or sth) to be (located) at
  3. (used before a verb to indicate an action in progress)
7 一 yī
  1. one
  2. single
  3. a (article)
  4. as soon as
  5. entire; whole; all; throughout
  6. "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1)
  7. also pr. yāo for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit
8 座 zuò
  1. seat
  2. base; stand
  3. (bound form) constellation
  4. (archaic) suffix used in a respectful form of address (e.g. 师座 shīzuò)
  5. classifier for large immovable objects such as buildings, mountains, bridges etc
=9 小岛 Xiǎodǎo Kojima (Japanese surname and place name)
=9 小岛 xiǎodǎo isle
=10 上 shǎng used in 上声 shǎngshēng
=10 上 shàng
  1. (bound form) up; upper; above; previous
  2. first (of multiple parts)
  3. to climb; to get onto; to go up
  4. to attend (class or university)
  5. (directional complement) up
  6. (noun suffix) on; above
11 住 zhù
  1. to live
  2. to dwell
  3. to stay
  4. to reside
  5. to stop
  6. (suffix indicating firmness, steadiness, or coming to a halt)
=12 着 zhāo
  1. a move in chess (Taiwan pr. zhuó)
  2. trick; tactic
  3. (dialect) okay; all right
  4. (dialect) to put in; to add
=12 着 zháo
  1. to touch
  2. to come in contact with
  3. to feel
  4. to be affected by
  5. to catch fire
  6. to burn
  7. (coll.) to fall asleep
  8. (after a verb) hitting the mark
  9. succeeding in
=12 着 zhe aspect particle indicating action in progress or ongoing state
=12 着 zhuó
  1. to wear (clothes)
  2. to contact
  3. to use
  4. to apply
=13 一个 yīge
  1. a; an; one
  2. the whole (afternoon, summer vacation etc)
=13 一个 yīgè
  1. Combination of the numeral 一 (“one”) and the generic classifier 個／个: a; an; one
  2. same
14 老 lǎo
  1. prefix used before the surname of a person or a numeral indicating the order of birth of the children in a family or to indicate affection or familiarity
  2. old (of people)
  3. venerable (person)
  4. experienced
  5. of long standing
  6. always
  7. all the time
  8. of the past
  9. very
  10. outdated
  11. (of meat etc) tough
15 国王 guówáng king