Most of Hiraku\'s lessons are written in Japanese for Japanese learners. A few, however, are originally written in English — and these are surfaced here for visitors who don\'t read Japanese.
Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904) was a Greek-Irish writer who spent the last fourteen years of his life in Japan, married a Japanese woman, and re-told Japanese folktales in lyrical, careful English. His writing is now used in Japanese high schools as English-reading material — an interesting loop where Japan re-imports its own stories through his voice.
「Alice was beginning to get very tired」── 1865 年、 オ ッ ク ス フ ォ ー ド の 数 学 者 ル イ ス・キ ャ ロ ル (1832–1898) が 書 い た『不 思 議 の 国 の ア リ ス』。 ナ ン セ ン ス と 言 葉 遊 び に 満 ち た 児 童 文 学 の 古 典。 高 1 英 語 で 抜 粋 を 原 文 で 味 わ お う。
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原題：貉
Lafcadio Hearn's 1904 retelling of a Japanese ghost story — the faceless creature, the noodle-vendor, and the night journey along the slope of Akasaka.
For whom: Intermediate English reader. Late-Meiji English prose, but the vocabulary stays in everyday range. ~1,500 words.
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「One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all.」── アメリカ短編の名手 O. Henry が、ニューヨークの貧しい夫婦のクリスマスを描いた不朽の名作。互いを思う愛が、皮肉な結末で結ばれる。英語の語感と人情を同時に味わう教材。
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「Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…」── 19世紀アメリカが生んだ最高の浪漫派詩人 Edgar Allan Poe の代表詩。失われた愛と、現れる謎の烏 (からす)。英語の韻律の美しさを味わう古典詩教材。
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「O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done」── 19 世紀 ア メ リ カ 詩 の 最 大 の 詩 人 ウ ォ ル ト・ホ イ ッ ト マ ン が、 リ ン カ ー ン 大 統 領 の 暗 殺 を 悼 ん で 書 い た 名 詩。 船 と 船 長 の 比 喩 で 国 と 指 導 者 を 描 く、 米 国 文 学 史 上 屈 指 の エ レ ジ ー。
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原題：雪女
Hearn's most famous Japanese folktale rewriting (1904). A young woodcutter spared by a snow-spirit, and the wife he must never speak of her to. A meditation on memory, secrets, and love.
For whom: Intermediate English reader. ~2,000 words. The lesson includes Japanese annotations and vocabulary support.
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原題：5文型統合教材
This one is the reverse: a Japanese-language lesson on the five basic English sentence patterns (S+V, S+V+C, S+V+O, S+V+O+O, S+V+O+C), with comprehensive vocabulary and idiom coverage at the college-entry level.
For whom: Japanese learners of English at intermediate-to-advanced level. The lesson is in Japanese; English speakers may use it to understand how Japanese schools teach English grammar.
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Selected Japanese classics whose famous opening passages are now also available with English translations and historical context written for non-Japanese-speaking readers:
原題：平家物語・祇園精舎
The bell of the Gion temple resounds with the echo of the impermanence of all things. The opening passage of Japan\'s great medieval war epic.
原題：方丈記
The river flows on, but the water is never the same. A 13th-century hermit\'s reflection on the catastrophes of his age, from a hut three meters square.
Japan\'s English curriculum (高校英語) traditionally includes Lafcadio Hearn\'s tales as accessible, atmospheric English prose. For a student in Japan, reading Mujina in English is both an English lesson and an encounter with a familiar Japanese story told in a foreign voice — a productive double estrangement.
For English-speaking visitors browsing Hiraku, these lessons offer a different angle: here is what Japanese teenagers read in their English class, with the kind of annotations a Japanese schoolteacher would add (vocabulary glosses, cultural notes, discussion questions). The annotations are in Japanese — but the original text is English, and you can read it directly.