Haven't seen this posted on the resource lists yet - is it new? Someone on Lang-8 just alerted me to its existence. It's explicitly a site for kids and foreigners in Japan (小中学生の皆さんや、日本に住んでいる外国人の方へ、わかりやすいことばでニュースを伝えるものです).

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/

It'd be great if you could turn off the furigana. Not gonna nitpick a great resource, though! Be warned that the audio seems like it's machine-read, so not a good resource for absorbing native speech. However, some of the news stories have associated video clips with an expanded version of the story read by a native reporter.

Not a substitute for attempting to read a FNN or 朝日新聞, but a great beginner and lower intermediate resource. I'm probably going to read it daily for a while to help increase my comprehension and reading speed.

-J-

Awesome, thanks! It's new to me at least

Hey, awesome website, thanks for posting!

If you want to turn off furigana you can do so on any individual page there by pasting this into the address bar:

javascript:void(function(){var rubies = document.getElementsByTagName("rt"); for(var i=0; i<rubies.length; i++) rubies[i].innerHTML = '';}())

I tested in Chrome but should work in other browsers as well.
Note that for some reason when you paste that Chrome automatically removes the javascript: part. So check that the URL still starts with javascript: and add it if necessary, otherwise it will take you to a Google search.

wow, great find!!!

Aren't NHK awesome...

Thanks, that is a great find!

I don't enough furigana to get too annoyed...within the news stories themselves I don't see any furigana. I like how it gives simple Japanese definitions of the underlined words in the news stories.

avelicu Wrote:If you want to turn off furigana you can do so on any individual page there by pasting this into the address bar:

javascript:void(function(){var rubies = document.getElementsByTagName("rt"); for(var i=0; i<rubies.length; i++) rubies[i].innerHTML = '';}())

Perfect! Thank you!! This makes it easier to copy/paste things into my sentence database.

This is really a fantastic resource - thanks for posting it!

einahpets Wrote:Thanks, that is a great find!

I don't enough furigana to get too annoyed...within the news stories themselves I don't see any furigana. I like how it gives simple Japanese definitions of the underlined words in the news stories.

Yes, love the simple Japanese definitions. It helps for bootstrapping one's self into Japanese-only study. Brilliant site all around.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

avelicu Wrote:If you want to turn off furigana you can do so on any individual page there by pasting this into the address bar:

javascript:void(function(){var rubies = document.getElementsByTagName("rt"); for(var i=0; i<rubies.length; i++) rubies[i].innerHTML = '';}())

Perfect! Thank you!! This makes it easier to copy/paste things into my sentence database.

FYI, you can also define this as a Bookmark in Chrome, then just click the bookmark to remove furigana. Easier than pasting it into the address bar each time.

-J-

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

avelicu Wrote:If you want to turn off furigana you can do so on any individual page there by pasting this into the address bar:

javascript:void(function(){var rubies = document.getElementsByTagName("rt"); for(var i=0; i<rubies.length; i++) rubies[i].innerHTML = '';}())

Perfect! Thank you!! This makes it easier to copy/paste things into my sentence database.

FYI, you can also define this as a Bookmark in Chrome, then just click the bookmark to remove furigana. Easier than pasting it into the address bar each time.

-J-

An even easier way to get the article without the furigana is to click on the image which is located on the top right of the article.



It should open a new tab to a non furigana version (Example today's article without furigana)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20120612...71000.html

RawrPk Wrote:An even easier way to get the article without the furigana is to click on the image which is located on the top right of the article.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/img/btn_...normal.png

It should open a new tab to a non furigana version (Example today's article without furigana)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20120612...71000.html

They're not the same thing. That link is the original article for a general audience (一般のニューズ原稿). The article with furigana is a simplified version of that. Of course, it's worthwhile trying to read both. At my level, however, I'm having a better time with the simplified article. I read that first, digest it, learn any missing vocabulary, and then attempt to tackle the original article.

-J-

Hah, buonaparte is way ahead of you. He posted this NHK Easy link in his audio and text links thread on May 22.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6840&page=12

That dude is great.

Seamoby Wrote:That dude is great.

+1

Seamoby Wrote:Hah, buonaparte is way ahead of you. He posted this NHK Easy link in his audio and text links thread on May 22.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6840&page=12

That dude is great.

Ha! Back in 2010, no less. I'll shut up now. :-D

-J-

Just browsing the site, and the audio player currently shows as a black box. Anybody else having this problem? I'm on Firefox 39. Also just recently updated Flash Player. It's probably Flash Player.

The mp3 url is the same as the html url, just change html to mp3 and you'll be able to download the audio file.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k1001014...21000.html
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k1001014...421000.mp3

That's weird something had disabled Flash Player. Not sure what happened because I didn't do anything in particular. Anyway I uninstalled, reinstalled, it's fine now.

I have a semi-related question. As of last week I've been trying to study using news every day (FNN, not NHK Easy Web). I watch/listen to the videos for each article multiple times. Usually a dry run not looking at the text, then the text, then a mixture of all of them. Depending on the difficulty of the article I play the video multiple times. My final viewing is without looking at the text and if I'm comfortable with how I comprehended the audio one final time.

Has anyone focused heavily on studying using the news in this fashion, and did it work for comprehension? How long did it take to comfortably comprehend the news without the text? Of course sometimes it gets very specialized with its vocabulary which is when it's most difficult.

Hmm I've never done that for news but do something similar for drama. I haven't done it for too long so I can't say how it is working out or not.

I also just recently found that there is a reddit page dedicated to translating NHK easy articles. Can't verify the accuracy though since I haven't rally looked through it

https://www.reddit.com/r/NHKEasyNews/