The "news reading" challenge 🗞

Hiya there!

Do you want to read news in Japanese every day, but lack the motivation to do so? What about committing together to reading a minimum number of articles each day, to give ourselves an extra push? :muscle:

This thread is a commitment thread. :ring: + :thread:. Here, you can set for yourself a lower-bound on the number of articles you want to read every day, and maybe increase it as reading gets easier. If you are interested in joining me (victory!!), please write in the next post:

  1. Your username
  2. The minimum number of articles per day :checkered_flag: you would like to read
  3. For reference, what sources you are using at the moment!

Of course, you can read from whatever source you like: video gaming websites, traditional newspapers, orange cat :cat2: picture magazines… Everything works! For those who are still beginning to learn Japanese, NHK News Easy is a good place to start.

I don’t know about you, but reading newspapers and magazines in my mother tongue and in English has been one of my favorite hobbies for a very long time. I actually do have fun reading news in Japanese, but it exhausts me :zombie: . Because of that, although some days I will read 2-3 short articles, more often than not I won’t read more than a few headlines. I am against pushing myself too hard when learning Japanese, but I feel that putting a gentle lower-bound to my readings will help me build up an ability to read without instantly running out of energy.

I hope some of you will join me, and that we will all reinforce our reading skills together! :fire:

53 Likes
Username Minimum # of articles/day Sources Joined
Kakapo 1 (400 characters) 朝日新聞, NHK News 2021-05-24
Trunklayer 4 NHK Easy News 2021-05-24
nyxqueenofshadows 1 NHK Easy News 2021-05-24
I-am-nothing 1 (Hopefully) NHK Easy News 2021-05-24
MaineJ 1 NHK Easy News 2021-05-24
Rodngarcia 1 NHK Easy News 2021-05-24
beebeechan 1 NHK Easy News 2021-05-26
Hisuhn 1 NHK Easy News 2021-05-26
mintrunning 1 NHK Easy News, Watanoc 2021-05-27
Chemifox 1 NHK Easy News 2021-06-01
jameswpierce 1 NHK Easy News 2021-06-01
Burnannator 1 NHK Easy News, Sankei 2021-06-23
westinah 1 Asahi Shimbun 2021-07-05
meghana 1 HuffPost JP 2021-07-05
irabuyu 3 NHK Easy News 2021-07-16
prizegaming 1 up to 3 NHK Easy News 2021-07-17
NyappyTiramisu ~0.29? HuffPost JP 2021-07-17
klgehrke 1 NHK Easy News 2021-08-05
Lolimouette 1 Asahi Shimbun 2021-08-23
DIO-Berry 1 NHK Easy News 2021-09-08
aeyan 1 NHK Easy News 2021-10-06
Crescent_Moon 1 NHK Easy News 2022-10-12
MiriahF 1 朝日新聞, NHK News 2023-1-4
NeoArcturus 4 NHK Easy News 2021-02-10
12 Likes
Username Minimum # of articles/day Sources
Trunklayer 4 NHK Easy News
3 Likes

I’meowt of likes, but I really like this idea.
I’ve already been reading 4 NHK Easy News articles purr day, but this thread would help me stay meowtivated :cat2:

11 Likes

Curious - why so? Just still at a point where it’s a lot to process? Or something else?

3 Likes

Well, I’ve just tried reading this article

And stopped in the middle. I did manage to understand most of what I read, but it is draining. Same with ordinary NHK News. So, for now I’d rather stick to NHK Easy News :sweat_smile:

6 Likes
Username Minimum # of articles/day Sources
nyxqueenofshadows 1 NHK Easy News
4 Likes

was just thinking about how i need more reading motivation and the forums come through for me again! looking forward to it!

3 Likes

@trunklayer @nyxqueenofshadows, reading buddies! :blush: よろしく!

Nyx-san, Fate is on your side!! That makes you a bit intimidating, to be honest, but I’m glad you joined nonetheless :slight_smile:

Trunklayer-san, I kinda feel that Trunklayer-trap worked as intended…

4 Likes

Thanks for asking! What exhausts me is fetching on/kunyomi from the bottom of my brain, as well as checking the readings/meanings of words I’m not sure about. I usually don’t pay attention to kanjis I haven’t studied so far.

So that’s really about a lack of practice :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Let me ask the @mods to do that! :bowing_woman:

7 Likes

Oh, btw, and I forgot to mention, I’ve read today’s 4 news.
I liked the one about the balerine best. It’s always great to see when someone manages to make their lifelong dream into reality!

1 Like

It’s a wiki now!

9 Likes

I would like to eventually do this (I read a decent number of news articles a day in English), but I think I probably need to a wait a bit more since I just hit lvl 13 on WK and am not quite finished with Genki I yet. At what point should I start trying to do NHK Easy?

2 Likes

Well, I started reading NHK Easy News when I was somehwre on level 15 - 20.
It looked overwhelming at first, because it’s all-Japanese, no English, but once I overcame the first impression, I found out that I could actually read quite a lot.
So, I think you should start reading soon. At the very least you’d be able to get the general idea of the article.

I usually read each article 3 times - first I just read through it, skipping through anything I don’t understand, then I read it more thoroughly, looking up the Japanese definitions of all the underlined words and, in some cases, looking up some words on jisho.org (had to consult jisho.org quite often at first, but nowadays I need this much less often).
Finally I turn off the furinaga and listen to the audioversion while simultaneously reading the text for the third time.

6 Likes

Thanks. How much grammar do you need to know (as I am still at a sub-N5 level on that)? I know the kanji used in NHK Easy are more ‘basic’ (for the lack of a better term) than the ones in typical newspapers, but how about the vocab?

3 Likes

Well, usually they use only the basic grammar, so, nothing too complicated. As for the vocab - well, I often find new vocab there, but in many cases it’s underlined so I can simply hover the mouse over it and read the Japanese definition. In many cases it is clear enough so I don’t even need to check with jisho.org.

Btw, these underlined words are very useful. I recommend always hovering over them even if you already know the word, because it’s good practice to read the Japanese definition.

4 Likes

My grammar’s failry rusty, but Wanikani helped me in reading this without relying too heavily on furigana.



[緊急時代宣言] is probably the most difficult word here, though it seems the article is about how the pandemic has affected bars [居酒屋] and restuarants in the Okinawa prefecture.

People aren’t really ordering as much alcohol, though I suppose that’d make sense.

Here’s hopin’ I cam keep this up.

3 Likes

Yeah, but more precisely, the restaurants are being told to close because drinking alcohol together in large groups at evenings - is a sure way to spread the pandemic…

And yeah, I remember how when I first saw 緊急事態宣言 last year… However, I got used to it very soon :sweat_smile:
Effectively, it is a combination of 緊急、事態 and 宣言、two of which are taught on WK.

Yes, you can! If even such a clumsy cat as meowself can - then so can you! :cat2:

3 Likes

Ah, I see…

Hopefully things’ll improve over the coming months.

Heh, I can imagine.

Emergency/situation/decleration (緊急・時代・宣言) - That’s a pretty handy way of breaking it down, thanks!

2 Likes