Nihongo Work

Nihongo TalesEasy Japanese

The Emperor's New Clothes

44 sentences · 643 characters

How this story is made

The audio is read aloud by a native Japanese speaker, line by line. Every line is checked against the script before it goes up.

The pictures are made with AI and then checked one by one — any that get the story wrong are made again.

The English follows the Japanese line by line — tense included. Japanese stories move between past and present, so the English does too.

  1. Long, long ago, in a certain country, there was a king.

  2. The king loved beautiful clothes.

  3. The king changed into new clothes every day.

  4. One day, two men came to the castle.

  5. They said,

  6. "We are tailors.

  7. We make the most beautiful clothes in the world.

  8. Foolish people cannot see these clothes."

  9. The king heard that.

  10. The king was overjoyed.

  11. The king said,

  12. "That's good.

  13. I'll be able to tell right away who is foolish."

  14. The king gave the two men a lot of money.

  15. The two men went into a room.

  16. The two men pretended to make clothes.

  17. But actually, they weren't using any thread or cloth at all.

  18. A few days later, the king sent a minister to the room.

  19. The minister looked at the room.

  20. There was nothing in the room.

  21. But the minister felt scared.

  22. The minister said,

  23. "What beautiful clothes!"

  24. The king also went to the room.

  25. The king looked around the room.

  26. The king couldn't see anything either.

  27. But the king felt scared too.

  28. The king said,

  29. "Wonderful.

  30. I will wear this.

  31. Let's walk through the town."

  32. The king put on the invisible clothes.

  33. The king went out to the town.

  34. The people of the town couldn't see anything either.

  35. But they all felt scared.

  36. Everyone said,

  37. "What beautiful clothes!"

  38. Then, one small child said in a loud voice,

  39. "The king isn't wearing anything!"

  40. The people of the town heard that.

  41. Everyone laughed.

  42. The king felt embarrassed.

  43. But the king kept walking through the town until the end.

  44. The end.