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Nihongo TalesEasy Japanese

Kobutori Jiisan, The Old Man Who Lost His Lump

47 sentences · 950 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.

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  1. Long, long ago, an old man with a big lump on his right cheek lived in a certain place.

  2. The old man always felt embarrassed about the lump.

  3. One day, the old man went to the mountain to cut wood.

  4. Suddenly, it started to rain.

  5. The old man hid in a hollow in a big tree.

  6. Night came.

  7. From somewhere, he heard many voices.

  8. When he looked outside the hollow, oni had gathered.

  9. The oni were drinking sake and dancing.

  10. Watching the dance, the old man wanted to dance too.

  11. The old man came out of the hollow and danced together with the oni.

  12. The oni were surprised and delighted.

  13. The biggest oni said,

  14. "What a wonderful dance.

  15. Come here again and dance for us."

  16. The biggest oni continued,

  17. "Until then, we'll hold onto this for a while."

  18. The oni grabbed the old man's lump.

  19. The lump came off right away.

  20. The old man was surprised.

  21. But it didn't hurt.

  22. The old man was delighted.

  23. The old man went home.

  24. The old woman was surprised to see the old man without his lump.

  25. The old man told the old woman about the oni.

  26. This story quickly spread through the whole village.

  27. Next door lived an old man who was a bit mean.

  28. The neighbor had a lump on his left cheek.

  29. The neighbor heard that story too.

  30. The neighbor thought he would have his own lump taken off too.

  31. The neighbor went to the same mountain.

  32. The neighbor hid in the same tree hollow.

  33. Night came.

  34. The oni gathered again.

  35. The neighbor came out of the hollow.

  36. The oni thought the neighbor was the earlier old man.

  37. The neighbor danced.

  38. But the neighbor's dancing was bad.

  39. The oni were disappointed.

  40. The biggest oni said,

  41. "With dancing this bad, we won't take off your lump.

  42. And what's more, we'll stick this one on too."

  43. The oni stuck the lump they had been holding onto the neighbor's cheek.

  44. The neighbor ended up with two lumps.

  45. The neighbor went home crying.

  46. The old man and old woman, who had not been greedy, lived happily ever after.

  47. The end.