How Does It Sound in English and in Japanese?//
The Little Prince  was originally published in French, but it is now available in many languages, including Japanese.// Compare the English translation with the Japanese versions.//
　Once when I was six I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories.// It showed a boa constrictor swallowing a wild beast.// Here is a copy of the picture.//

　In the book it said: “Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing.// Afterward they are no longer able to move, and they sleep during the six months of their digestion.”//
　In those days I thought a lot about jungle adventures, and eventually managed to make my first drawing, using a colored pencil.// My drawing Number One looked like this://

　I showed the grown-ups my masterpiece, and I asked them if my drawing scared them.//
　They answered, “Why be scared of a hat?”//
　My drawing was not a picture of a hat.// It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.// Then I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so the grown-ups could understand.// They always need explanations.// My drawing Number Two looked like this://

　The grown-ups advised me to put away my drawings of boa constrictors, outside or inside, and apply myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar.// That is why I abandoned, at the age of six, a magnificent career as an artist.// I had been discouraged by the failure of my drawing Number One and of my drawing Number Two.// Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again.//