ニュース – Learning Japanese from the News
There are a number of methods you can use to learn Japanese. However, it is more important to have content to study than to have a good method. The internet has YouTube, Twitter, and lots of websites in Japanese. So, even if you are not in Japan you can still get access countless resources.
The most important thing though is to find something that you enjoy in order to keep up your motivation to study. That can actually be harder to do since you need to know what you are looking for and how to search for it in Japanese. Then, of course, you need to hope that Google, Bing, Yahoo, or whoever will show you the results you are looking for.
If you are able to find enjoyable content that can keep you busy for hours then great! Use that. If not though, Learning Japanese from the news is a good alternative. Here’s why.
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Benefits of Learning with the News
Japanese news sources are great for a number of reasons. Here are four of those reasons:
- Lots of Content
- Up-to-Date
- A Variety of Topics
- Standard Pronunciation
Lots of Content
News sources work by constantly putting out new information. Some of the news sources will remove older content but often you can still access older content to keep you busy.
Up-to-Date
Also, the news is obviously a place with up-to-date information. If you want to know what is happening now in Japan or the rest of the world then you can check the news. Language does not change that quickly but sometimes if you have really old textbooks, for example, the example sentences and so on maybe a bit dated.
A Variety of Topics
The news is not always that exciting to read. But, what it lacks in excitement it covers with the variety of topics you can search.
Standard Pronunciation
If you are trying to perfect your Japanese and sound more refined then the news is the place to go. The announcers speak with standard pronunciation for words and phrases.
How to Learn from the News
Depending on if you are reading or listening to the news you have a few different ways to learn.
Reading the News
If you are reading the news then you will need to remember two things:
- Be Ok with Ambiguity
- Become Friends with Online Translators
If you are still learning Japanese then a lot of what you read will not make sense. There will be words or phrases that you don’t understand, or sentences may not make sense. That is ok, getting used to how words fit together to form full ideas is mostly a matter of practice. If you read a lot then it will become easier to understand how words work together.
If you have been studying Japanese for a while though and feel you not improving then studying specifically sentence structure may be what you need to focus on.
As for words that you don’t understand, have a dictionary available to translate what you don’t understand. Or, try to guess the meaning of things that you think you might know, or take note and search later.
Listening to the News
Listening in Japanese is a different story from reading and is typically more difficult. If you learn Kanji then often you can guess and be right about the meaning of words much of the time. When you listen to Japanese however, you don’t always have that visual guide to help. A lot of the time news programs and Japanese TV, in general, will add subtitles here and there when people speak. Not always, however. So it is important to learn to listen well on top of learning to read. You can do that a few different ways. My suggestion is to try listening to the same short phrase over and over.
You can also just listen to a variety of things and over time you will get better at listening. Whether you are listening or reading the news the biggest thing is to make a habit out of it. The more you do it the easier it will become.
