"等人因", "七七四十九天"?

[chavalit]

I'm learning Chinese and I have two questions about the following sentences. Any help is much appreciated.

1 ...孙悟空、猪八戒等人因偷吃人参果...

This is from the Journey to the West. I have no idea what "等人因" means.

2 ...，一直把他围困在芦花荡里七七四十九天, ...

I'm at a lost here. What does it mean to be besieged for "7 7 49" days?

[HashiriKata]

1.

I have no idea what "等人因" means.

等人should be separated from 因：

孙悟空、猪八戒等人 is the subject of the sentence (= Sun, Zhu & others). 因 is short for 因为。

2.

What does it mean to be besieged for "7 7 49" days?

I don't know the story, so can only guess that it's the length of time they were kept at the place: 7,749 days.

[semantic nuance]

7749 天 means 7 times 7, which is 49 days.

Hope it helps!

[Quest]

三三不尽，六六无穷，九九归一，七七四十九

[skylee]

Re 七七四十九. It's from "九因歌", which can be found here. Learn it.

[skylee]

A photo of 九因歌

[HashiriKata]

Thanks, skylee! Since the name is "九因歌" , I tried looking for & found a song with exactly the same name but it didn't sound anything like the table:

http://www.1ting.com/player/26/player_96711.html

I'd like to hear the rhythm, so is it possible to find a (Mandarin) vocal recitation of the table ?

[Quest]

I think we just called it, don't remember quite clearly, 乘法口诀 or 乘数表。When the number of syllables is less than 4, add 得 or 如。The "vocal" is just "read it out loud"...