Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively!

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - Printable Version

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Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - TheVinster - 2014-09-14

I'm not sure about you guys, but a slight dose of competitiveness can help me become motivated. That's why I've created a Google spreadsheet! Simply track the amount of news articles you've read in a given week and compare it to your previous week's, as well as the stats of others.

In attempting to increase my listening comprehension I've decided I just need to suck it up and go read some NHK articles and watch some videos. I like NHK the most but you can use whatever. They have one of the better video players on their sites. What I do is I watch and listen to the article to see what I grasp, then watch it again but follow along with the text, then kind of rinse and repeat to keep comprehending more. I do this until I'm satisfied with how well I can follow along and not need the text.

You can use whatever news sites you want, no matter the difficulty. Just remember this is to improve yourself and give you a little push if you see others are putting in a lot more effort. I remember we were doing this a few years ago with primarily NHK articles. This is an attempt at creating a more generalized version. If nobody else uses it I'll just be here competing with my self.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - MelonBerry - 2014-09-14

I'll join in! I need to read more NHK easy news anyways. ( I was hoping someone would re-start something like this so thanks. Smile

)

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - Jackdaw - 2014-09-14

I usually push myself to read more news during tadoku seasons, but I suppose I'll try this too and see if it helps me keep up some practice inbetween. Great idea with the listening practice, btw. Been thinking of doing the same recently.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - gaiaslastlaugh - 2014-09-14

I'll throw in. I try and read NHK a little every day, but have been lax recently. This will be good motivation to get back in the habit of reading at least 2-3 articles/day.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - buonaparte - 2014-09-15

If anyone's interested:
you can use Replay Media Catcher to download the NHK video clips or http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews/.

As to mp3 files from http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/index.html, they have the same url as the texts there:
for instance -
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10014542661000/k10014542661000.html
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10014542661000/k10014542661000.mp3

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - rich_f - 2014-09-15

Because NHK does a masterful job of hiding this site:
NHK Podcasts Home (doesn't require Radiko, yay!): http://www.nhk.or.jp/podcasts/

NHK Radio News (this is NOT the Easy Version!): http://www.nhk.or.jp/podcasts/program/r-news.html
Toss this RSS Feed: http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/podcast/nhkradionews.xml
Into your favorite podcatcher, and don't mess with the website.

Non-Japanese Versions of the news, but they don't cover the same stuff!: http://www.nhk.or.jp/podcasts/program/nhkworld.html

Also, the best website for leveling up news reading (opinions aside, lots of vocab!):
http://shasetsu.ps.land.to/

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - PotbellyPig - 2014-09-15

There are some nice apps of the iphone and the ipad for NHK news and Asahi TV news. I bought both of them. They let you repeat sections and look up words and the like. I consider my reading skills decent at this point (read over 30 light novels) but my listening skills aren't good. I've been going through anime episodes as practice. But this is even more challenging. I don't know how long it is going to take to get good at it.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - Sebastian - 2014-09-15

rich_f Wrote:http://shasetsu.ps.land.to/

Unfortunately, this site has been dead for a while. I hope it comes back because it's great.

That's the site where you can see the editorials from several newspapers at once, and it shows you editorials grouped by topic, right?

In Android there are apps that compile editorials from Japanese newspapers too (though you can't see different newspapers at once), and even download them for offline reading. I know 社説う. Then you can use Jade Reader to lookup vocabulary, or find an interesting editorial and then read it on the computer or on the phone using Rikaisama, and mine vocabulary to import it into Anki.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - Inny Jan - 2014-09-15

Sebastian Wrote:
rich_f Wrote:http://shasetsu.ps.land.to/
Unfortunately, this site has been dead for a while. [...]

何言ってんの？
2009年08月から今日までにそのサイトで社説を読むことができるよ。
例えば：
【毎日】ｉＰＳ臨床研究　冷静に応援したい
【読売】ｉＰＳ細胞移植　再生医療普及への試金石だ

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - rich_f - 2014-09-16

Sebastian Wrote:
rich_f Wrote:http://shasetsu.ps.land.to/
Unfortunately, this site has been dead for a while. I hope it comes back because it's great.

Yeah, what Inny Jan said.

Rejoice! IT'S ALIVE! Big Grin

Although I have noticed that for some reason, everything from 毎日 is really freakin' short. Like 1 paragraph, max. But generally, there's no shortage of stuff to read there.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - yudantaiteki - 2014-09-16

Inny Jan Wrote:何言ってんの？

If you had been writing in English, would you have said "What the hell are you talking about?"

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - gaiaslastlaugh - 2014-09-16

FYI - I'm going to post links to what I read to Twitter with the tag #RtKNewsChallenge. I figured that would be a neat way to share what we're reading with one another.

FWIW, if you do this, I'd recommend using a site like FNN or Asahi for news; NHK's news articles expire after about 3-5 days. (*grumble*)

EDIT: OTOH, the video player on FNN's site is incredibly crappy. So, pick your poison.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - Inny Jan - 2014-09-16

yudantaiteki Wrote:
Inny Jan Wrote:何言ってんの？
If you had been writing in English, would you have said "What the hell are you talking about?"

Thanks for the comment - that's more or less what I wanted to sound like.

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - Sebastian - 2014-09-16

How weird.

For some reason http://shasetsu.ps.land.to/ gives me "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

" on both Firefox and Chrome, and also on my phone.

Anybody else has the same problem? :/

Let's Listen to and Read News Articles! Somewhat Competitively! - Jumpluff13 - 2014-09-17

Got the same problem, as well.
Tried only yesterday and today, though.