Andersen's classic, in Japanese — every sentence broken down for upper-beginner readers.
A barefoot girl tries to sell matches on the last night of the year. No one buys. She strikes the matches one by one for warmth, and each small flame opens onto a vision — a warm stove, a roast goose, a glowing Christmas tree, her grandmother. This volume presents Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" as a Japanese retelling: a Danish story carried into the gentle pacing of Japanese folktale prose, with line-by-line vocabulary, grammar notes, native-speaker audio, and the classic English text alongside for self-checking.
New in the 2026 edition:
Bonus unlock code inside the book — redeem at Makotoplus.com to study every sentence from this book interactively, on the web or in the mobile app (search the App or Play store for "Makoto Japanese Explorer")
New illustrations and audio QR codes throughout — scan from the page, no link-typing
Before-You-Read section flagging the grammar and vocabulary patterns to watch for: katakana loanwords, ～ながら, まるで～ように, and the layered cold-vocabulary the story uses to build to its ending
Full Exercises section: Comprehension Questions, Particle Fill-in, Grammar Pattern Hunt, Translation Comparison, and Answer Key
Resized furigana — ruby now sits closer to the base text, the way good Japanese typography should
Running headers, page numbers, and section ornaments throughout
What's inside:
One story, presented three ways: with line-by-line vocabulary, in plain Japanese (no furigana, for real reading practice), and in the classic English translation
Word-by-word breakdowns with furigana over every kanji
Grammar spotlights, cultural notes, and reading tips throughout
A "Kanji in Focus" appendix covering the key kanji from the story
Free MP3 audio downloads — natural speed and slowed down — recorded by a native speaker
Free Anki deck for pre-study
Bonus unlock code for Makoto+ Sentence Explorer
No sign-up required to access the audio
About the story:
Hans Christian Andersen first published "The Little Match Girl" in Danish in 1845. In Japan, it has had a long second life — generations of schoolchildren have read it in textbooks, and its imagery is part of the country's literary fluency in the same way it is in Europe. Reading it in Japanese is a quiet way to compare two storytelling rhythms: the spare directness of Andersen's original meeting the soft cadence of Japanese folktale prose.
Who this is for: Upper-beginner to lower-intermediate learners. You'll need solid kana and a working sense of basic grammar. (New to hiragana? Take our free two-week crash course at TheJapanesePage.com/hiragana.)
Questions or requests for future readers? The authors' personal email addresses are inside the book.
