World classic, retold in simple Mandarin
The Emperor's New Clothes
皇帝的新装
The Emperor's New Clothes (皇帝的新装, Huángdì de xīn zhuāng) is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, retold in simple Mandarin as a 3-chapter story with audio for learners at about HSK 1 (Beginner).
Retold from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale: a vain emperor buys magic cloth that fools can't see, and nobody, not even the emperor, dares to admit they can't see it.
Meet the voices
- Narrator · 旁白 — Tells the old tale plainly and lets the characters make fools of themselves.
- The Emperor · 皇帝 — A vain emperor who changes his clothes every hour and cares about nothing else.
- The Swindler · 骗子 — A smooth-talking stranger who calls himself a weaver and bows very, very low.
- The Old Minister · 老大臣 — The emperor's honest old minister, who has never once doubted his own wits, until now.
- The Little Girl · 小女孩 — A little girl in the parade crowd who says exactly what she sees.
- The Girl's Father · 爸爸 — A man in the crowd who cheers as loudly as everyone else, until his daughter asks a simple question.
3 chapters, one journey
Chapter 1: The Emperor Who Loved Clothes
爱新衣服的皇帝
An emperor who changes his clothes every hour meets a stranger with an irresistible offer: cloth so fine that fools can't see it.
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Chapter 2: The Invisible Cloth
看不见的布
The emperor sends his trusted old minister to check on the magic cloth. There's just one problem: the loom looks completely empty.
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Chapter 3: Nothing On at All
什么也没穿
The new clothes are finally ready, the whole town turns out for the parade, and every voice is cheering. Well, almost every voice.
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Key words in The Emperor's New Clothes
Behind the story
The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (安徒生) published The Emperor's New Clothes in 1837. He built it on a much older Spanish tale and gave it the ending the world remembers: a child who simply says what everyone can see.
In Chinese the story is called 皇帝的新装, and it has long been a lesson in Chinese middle-school textbooks. The title has also become a figure of speech: people call something 皇帝的新装 when everyone praises what isn't really there, because nobody dares to say otherwise.
Did you know?
- In Andersen's first draft, no child speaks up. He rewrote the ending shortly before the story was printed.
- In the older Spanish tale, written by Don Juan Manuel in 1335, the swindlers claimed their cloth was invisible to any man who was not truly his father's son.
- 新装 (xīn zhuāng) in the title is a bookish way to say “new outfit.” In everyday Chinese, and in this retelling, people just say 新衣服 (xīn yīfu).