Hey everyone,

If you are looking to improve your Japanese and get a general idea of current affairs in Japan please take a moment to visit NHK News Easy.

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

This is a pilot project for NHK, and for me, its absolutely amazing!

Whenever I would pick up a Japanese newspaper, or force myself to read news online, I would want to either scratch out my eyeballs, or give up on the language itself (and I have been studying for N1 for nearly a year). But, with this website, as the news articles are written in an easy to understand manner, I actually enjoy the articles I am reading.

In addition, there are/is:

-a link to the original "difficult" Japanese article
-voice over for all the articles (practice your listening)
-the option to highlight kanji of places and names to make them easier to distinguish
-an original NHK news broadcast pertaining to the article
-a built in Japanese>Japanese dictionary for difficult words
-Japanese explanations for difficult compounds
-NO furigana, which is a good thing! (but, I expect that they will add a toggle in the near future)
-3 articles added daily!

As a foreigner desperately trying to learn the language and understand current affairs, this one-of-a-kind website is great! So, I felt that it was my duty to spread the message, let everyone know of this amazing tool, and get the people at NHK to notice.

If you visit even only once, it will show the people at NHK that this is a tool that us foreigners want and need. Afterall, more hits equals more money, and more money equals better service and therefore an improved learning/communication resource for the foreign community.

Let me know what you think!

Just had a quick look at this and it looks ideal for me! Since I'm probably just below N3 level it's still quite difficult to read for me, but it's not seemingly impossible (like real news is) for me to read!

What level would you say this is at? Do they convert all the latest news into this format?

Thank you for sharing this great resource.

Edit: I just read that article about the earthquake in L'Aquilla and was able to get the general meaning of the article without looking up anything! This is amazing, I'm going to use this pretty much every day as a way of getting sentences and as practice thank you!

Alec_xvi Wrote:(and I have been studying for N1 for nearly a year).

Have you seen any example 読解 questions before? I was reading regular NHK news for a while before taking the test, but the reading still seemed pretty brutal given the time limit. I agree that newspapers are pretty tough, but online news seems to be far more digestible - look at the length of the stories on the main NHK news site. The version you posted does seem pretty great for people of a lower level, and I would've been greatful for this link a few years ago, but for someone studying for N1, it could lead to laziness or underestimating the test - there's no furigana or simplified expressions in N1. Seems like a good resource in any case, and hopefully it's successful.

This is amazing. Bookmarked.

Alec_xvi Wrote:-NO hiragana, which is a good thing! (but, I expect that they will add a toggle in the near future)

I suspect you mean furigana. It's actually there - you may be viewing in Firefox, which doesn't support furigana ("Ruby") w/out extensions. At any rate, it's easy to turn off the furigana using the tip in this thread:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=9588

This is an awesome resource. I used it for about four months before transitioning to reading the main site exclusively. Enjoy!

Excellent resource, thanks for sharing. Sadly, my reading skills are still not up to even the Easy level. Is this something I could reasonably expect to be able to read once I'm done with the Core 6k? That would be a nice motivator.

If anything you should at least at this point write down the individual words you can spot.

Is there an easy way to download the audio so i can put it on a iPod?, Trid right clicking the player, but i dont see any save file as option.

http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_m...eb%20EASY/
NHK NewsWeb EASY/
20120410-20120604.7z
20120605-20120815.7z
20120806-20121022.7z

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

Alec_xvi Wrote:-NO hiragana, which is a good thing! (but, I expect that they will add a toggle in the near future)

I suspect you mean furigana. It's actually there - you may be viewing in Firefox, which doesn't support furigana ("Ruby") w/out extensions.

Thanks for noticing! I edited it to be furigana.

buonaparte Wrote:http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_m...eb%20EASY/
NHK NewsWeb EASY/
20120410-20120604.7z
20120605-20120815.7z
20120806-20121022.7z

You are amazing for collecting all of this.

gaiaslastlaugh,
you made me laugh. I didn't collect anything, I just posted the link.
There is a (private) Russian forum where they post such stuff.

The first file contains the original video clips, too.

buonaparte Wrote:gaiaslastlaugh,
you made me laugh. I didn't collect anything, I just posted the link.
There is a (private) Russian forum where they post such stuff.

The first file contains the original video clips, too.

Ha, my bad. But thanks for posting the link regardless!

buonaparte Wrote:...

Glad to see you posting buonaparte - for a moment I thought you left us.

Inny Jan,
I didn't know I had a fan.
I did leave, I'll be lurking for a week or two, I might drop an old link here or there, but I won't be uploading anything new.

For anyone interested:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6840
plenty or learning resources, from kana to audiobooks of novels with parallel texts.

buonaparte Wrote:I didn't know I had a fan.

It's impossible not to miss Your Granny.

Javizy Wrote:

Alec_xvi Wrote:(and I have been studying for N1 for nearly a year).

Have you seen any example 読解 questions before? I was reading regular NHK news for a while before taking the test, but the reading still seemed pretty brutal given the time limit. I agree that newspapers are pretty tough, but online news seems to be far more digestible - look at the length of the stories on the main NHK news site. The version you posted does seem pretty great for people of a lower level, and I would've been greatful for this link a few years ago, but for someone studying for N1, it could lead to laziness or underestimating the test - there's no furigana or simplified expressions in N1. Seems like a good resource in any case, and hopefully it's successful.

I am studying for the N1 with ASK publishings 日本語総まとめN1： 読解 and 文法. I am also using 日本語能力試験模試と対策２：N１. They are great books, if any one is interested in studying for the JLPT. For vocab and kanji I completed Heisig Book 1, and will be finished Core 6000 in a few days. And yes, I have taken (and failed) the test once.

As for the Japanese newspapers I have read, the articles are much more difficult and kanji-ridden than what you will find on the N1 test. Perhaps it is easier to read them online for you because you are using the help of Rikaichan? I dunno?

Corodon Wrote:Excellent resource, thanks for sharing. Sadly, my reading skills are still not up to even the Easy level. Is this something I could reasonably expect to be able to read once I'm done with the Core 6k? That would be a nice motivator.

Yes, I would say that it would be possible to read these news after Core 6k. Just make sure you do not completely neglect your grammar.

Kewickviper Wrote:Just had a quick look at this and it looks ideal for me! Since I'm probably just below N3 level it's still quite difficult to read for me, but it's not seemingly impossible (like real news is) for me to read!

What level would you say this is at? Do they convert all the latest news into this format?

Thank you for sharing this great resource.

I believe that it is a perfect level for someone studying for N3-N2, but I would go as far to say that it would be beneficial for N1'ers as if they are looking to set a base to improving their reading to a higher level.

I myself plan to improve my speaking by reading the news out loud (and yes, I will also speak with my Japanese friends/colleagues), seeing how it is written very much how I speak.

This is crazy awesome, thanks! Looks like a great resource to make Anki cards from.

Corodon Wrote:Excellent resource, thanks for sharing. Sadly, my reading skills are still not up to even the Easy level. Is this something I could reasonably expect to be able to read once I'm done with the Core 6k? That would be a nice motivator.

This question sounded odd to me. You can read the articles now. Can you read Core 6k? What's the difference between learning new words from reading the articles and learning new words from Core 6k?

Seamoby Wrote:This question sounded odd to me. You can read the articles now. Can you read Core 6k? What's the difference between learning new words from reading the articles and learning new words from Core 6k?

I am still very early on in my studies of the Core 6k, and when I look at the articles I can get a sense of what they are talking about, but not really read them yet. I'm not even to the point of it just being a few unknown words blocking me from reading the articles.

My goal in asking the question was, right now I look at the articles and think, ugh, these easy articles are too advanced for me, reading full difficulty material seems very far off. But, I know that every day I am learning 20 more sentences out of the Core, which puts me done at X months down the road. And if at that point I will be able to read the NHK articles, that's a tangible benefit. Not just that I will be able to read 6000 iKnow sentences, but that this material that I would like to be able to read but is beyond my skills will become accessible to me. It ties a goal that I want to be able to achieve to a task that that has quantifiable, attainable steps which for me is much more motivating than just a general objective of wanting to be good at Japanese.

Wow this is amazing. Love it.

Can't get over how good this is, have set it to my homepage on all computers. It's like free rabbit press easy readers...

Some sites with news:
very easy simplified news plus audio and vocab in English
for learners of Japanese
http://www.coscom.co.jp/
http://www.coscom.co.jp/newsweather/news/index.html
http://www.coscom.co.jp/newsweather/koramu/index.html

They decided to remove past posts, here they are:
http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_m...osComSite/


the NHK site for foreigners and kids, audio + text + links to the original news
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/index.html
http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_m...eb%20EASY/


Not simplified
Japanese-English texts, news with audio
http://www.scola.org/Scola/Default.aspx (you need a pass but it is easy to get, google for it)
http://gloss.dliflc.edu/search.aspx

vids + text
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews/
right-click 400k, save news.asx, drag to notepad, copy the mms:// (OrbitDwonloader or Hidownload to download vids)
http://www.nhk.or.jp/ (Real Media Catcher to download)

It gives furigana for every word so even elementary school children (and learners) can read it. No audio.
http://mainichi.jp/life/edu/maishou/

Service no longer available:
http://users.bestweb.net/%7Esiom/martian...dsyahoo.7z
(no audio, but furigana)

Mock news for learners (texts audio)
http://users.bestweb.net/%7Esiom/martian...%201986.7z
http://users.bestweb.net/%7Esiom/martian...art%202.7z



JW - not only religious stuff:
audio + transcripts in many languages.
English:
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/
Japanese:
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazi...yearFilter=

世界展望 in 「目ざめよ！」 magazine is interesting. Example:
http://www.jw.org/ja/%E5%87%BA%E7%89%88%...%E6%9C%9B/