hikkosi no hi made ni, danbooru wo zikko atumemasita.

A natural reading is:

ひっこし の ひ まで に、だんボール を じゅっこ あつめました。

Word by word:

• 引っ越し → ひっこし
• 日 → ひ
• 段ボール → だんボール
• 十個 → じゅっこ
• 集めました → あつめました

You may also hear じっこ for 十個, but じゅっこ is the standard form taught most often.

までに marks a deadline: by a certain time.

So 引っ越しの日までに means by the day of the move or before moving day arrives.

Compare:

• までに = by
• まで = until

So:

• 引っ越しの日までに、段ボールを十個集めました。
  = I collected ten cardboard boxes by moving day.

• 引っ越しの日まで、...
  would suggest something continuing until that day, which is a different nuance.

の links two nouns together.

• 引っ越し = moving, move
• 日 = day
• 引っ越しの日 = the day of the move / moving day

This is a very common pattern in Japanese:

• 試験の日 = exam day
• 旅行の日 = travel day
• 誕生日の日 would usually just be 誕生日, but structurally it is the same idea

So here の simply connects moving and day.

Both can work, but the nuance is slightly different.

• 引っ越しまでに = by the move / before moving
• 引っ越しの日までに = by the day of the move

Adding 日 makes the time reference more explicit. It points clearly to the day itself as the deadline.

So the version with 日 can feel a little more concrete.

In Japanese, 段ボール can mean:

• cardboard
• a cardboard box
• cardboard boxes, depending on context

In everyday situations like moving, 段ボール usually means cardboard boxes.

That is why this sentence uses a counter and talks about collecting ten of them.

個 is a very common general counter for smallish concrete objects, and Japanese often uses it more broadly than English learners expect.

So 段ボールを十個 means ten cardboard boxes.

Depending on how the speaker sees the object, other counters can sometimes appear:

• 個: counting them as box-like objects
• 箱: counting them specifically as boxes
• 枚: if thinking of flattened cardboard sheets

In real life, 個 is very natural here.

Both are possible, but they are structured a little differently.

1. 段ボールを十個集めました
   This is a very common Japanese pattern:
   noun + を + number-counter + verb

2. 十個の段ボールを集めました
   Here 十個の directly modifies 段ボール, like ten cardboard boxes

The first pattern is especially common in spoken and everyday Japanese. It often sounds more natural and less heavy.

Because 段ボール is the noun being marked as the direct object.

In Japanese, counters often appear separately from the noun they count:

• りんごを三つ食べました
• 本を二冊買いました
• 段ボールを十個集めました

So the structure is:

• 段ボール = the thing
• を = marks it as the object
• 十個 = tells you how many
• 集めました = collected

This is a normal and very common sentence pattern.

Because 集める and 集まる are different verbs.

• 集める = to collect, gather something
  → transitive, takes an object
• 集まる = to gather, come together
  → intransitive, no direct object

Here the speaker actively collected the boxes, so 集めました is correct.

Compare:

• 段ボールを十個集めました。
  = I collected ten cardboard boxes.

• 段ボールが十個集まりました。
  = Ten cardboard boxes gathered / were accumulated.
  This focuses more on the result than on the person intentionally collecting them.

The sentence describes a completed action.

So 集めました means the collecting was finished.

Even though 引っ越しの日までに gives a deadline, the speaker is looking back on the action as completed by that deadline.

In English, depending on context, this could feel like:

• I collected ten cardboard boxes by moving day.
• or I had collected ten cardboard boxes by moving day.

Japanese often uses the simple past where English might sometimes prefer a past perfect.

By itself, 十個 normally means exactly ten.

If the speaker meant about ten, Japanese would usually add something like:

• 十個ぐらい
• 十個くらい
• 十個ほど

So without one of those markers, learners should understand 十個 as a literal count.

The comma is not grammatically required, but it is very natural.

It helps separate the time phrase from the main part of the sentence:

• 引っ越しの日までに、 = by moving day,
• 段ボールを十個集めました。 = I collected ten cardboard boxes.

Japanese punctuation is often used to make sentences easier to read and to reflect a natural pause.

Yes, to some extent. Japanese word order is flexible as long as the particles still make the relationships clear.

For example, these are possible:

• 引っ越しの日までに、段ボールを十個集めました。
• 段ボールを引っ越しの日までに十個集めました。
• 段ボールを十個、引っ越しの日までに集めました。

They all mean basically the same thing, though the emphasis may shift slightly.

The original version is very natural because it puts the time deadline first, which sets the context clearly.