Tonight there was a M7.3 earthquake in the Tohoku region, and for a while there was concern about a tsunami. (I think the biggest wave measured was only 20cm, but that's not the point.)

If you want a really useful (and possibly life-saving if you move to Japan) listening lesson, I *highly* recommend heading to the NHK Radio news page here:

http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/podcast/nhkradionews.xml

And download the 12月7日 夜7時NHKきょうのニュース file-- this one:
http://www9.nhk.or.jp/r-news/podcast/mp … ight_1.mp3

Or you can just listen to it here:
http://www.nhk.or.jp/r-news/
But you can only listen to it as long as it's up.

Most of the 44 minute newscast is about the earthquake, tsunami warnings, the effects of the earthquake on traffic and rails, etc., and a notice about the tsunami warnings being cancelled.

EDIT: Today's free JapanesePod101.com lesson is also about earthquakes. It's a rerun of an older 中級 lesson. Easier to understand than NHK, so maybe a good place to start.

The main problem is that these files don't stay on the NHK feed for very long (after 24 hrs, they go away from the RSS feed), so grab it quickly.

If you don't understand it yet, keep at it. It's NHK, so they like big words. The problem is that you need to be able to understand these particular big words quickly if a wall of water is heading in your general direction.

Last edited by rich_f (2012 December 07, 11:28 am)