How to Watch the News in Japanese
“Oh, maybe you can speak conversational Japanese, but the news, that’s impossibe, man. The news is so hard. You’ll never understand the news. Even Japanese people don’t understand the news, man”.
I’m allergic to BS, so that type of thing is really hard for me to hear. And even harder to type out. Time for more myth-busting. You can watch and understand the news in Japanese. I’ve been doing it since 2005, and my intelligence is famously questionable.
Don’t believe the hype. There’s nothing especially complex about the news. How could a type of program that uses a fixed set of phrases, and (due to the nature of news) repeats itself for weeks at a time…be difficult? How can a form of television invented to inform a non-expert audience be difficult? If anything, news is very much a lowest common denominator of television.
As with most so-called “difficult” things, there is no magic to watching the news. You just have to get used to it. And the way you do that is by watching a lot of it. I mean a LOT. A. LOT. There was a time when I watched and listened to the news exclusively on a close to 24-hour basis (yes, when sleeping as well). I would even watch a news broadcast, record the audio from it, and replay it for days at a time. Watching, watching, watching. Listening. Listening. Listening.
The news source I used for that was the Fuji News Network (FNN). Then and now, they offer a 30-minute news digest that updates once a day. The news streams in clips of about 90 seconds. Each clip has an accompanying text section on the FNN site, often this text is an exact transcript of the words spoken by the newscaster. Even when it isn’t, it’s very close.
I would loop the FNN webcast all day. It only updates once a day, so that means a lot of repetition for you. But not in a boring way — each time the news repeats, you will catch something you may have missed the last time. Pretty soon, you’ll start to pick up the set phrases (”逮捕されたのは・・・”、”警察は事故の原因を調べています”) and the keywords (”北朝鮮”, “拉致問題”) and such. Eventually, you’ll understand the entire broadcast. It will take a while (weeks and months), but you’ll learn a lot and you’ll feel yourself learning a lot along the way. In the end, news will cease to be a challenge for you. After that, you can either continue being a news junkie, or become a jaded news refusenik like me ;). Either way, the vocabulary you learned from watching news will remain with you through your SRS. And since TV news and newspapers are related, I imagine your TV news proficiency will help you read the papers as well. Finally, you’ll learn about more formal words and styles of Japanese speech, for example, that people when speaking formally, use filler words like “まあ” rather than “さあ”, and “ですね” rather than just “ね”, and tend to end their sentences in “・・・と、いう風に思います”. All these things that born native speakers take for granted, you the self-made native speaker can learn just like they did — through intense observation, followed by imitation.
FNN was the main news source I used; while I was using it, Yomiuri News Podcasts came into being. They offer news in both audio and video formats; which may save you having to record audio from the Fuji News Network site (although, I would still recommend doing that; it’s more fun to listen to something you’ve watched, as well as being easier to understand when you’re still learning a lot). Also, being podcasts, updates can be “hands-free” in a sense.
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james said,
April 25, 2007 @ 11:09 pm
Hello again khatzumoto,
I would also like to recommend http://news.tbs.co.jp to your readers /fans as It has been invaluable in my understanding of the news. It is similiar to the FNN you described and very useful for copying and pasting into mnemosyne.
２児拉致、総連最高幹部らに聴取要請 etc
james
james said,
April 25, 2007 @ 11:18 pm
sorry, me again.
I’ve also been experimenting with something one of my Japanese friends told me. Basically listening to something in Japanese i.e. a news broadcast as it streams and repeating it whilst its being said.
This methd has really increased my understanding of the news and I feel like my vocab is now more ‘active’ than it was before as I not only hear the word but say it in the sentence that the news announcer just said.
What are your thoughts on this? did you use it?
I was also wondering if you ever went in for the Japanese language proficiency test level 1 or any kind of test like that?
james
khatzumoto said,
April 25, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
>I was also wondering if you ever went in for the Japanese language proficiency test level >1 or any kind of test like that?
I hate tests. I had to study for the SAT Verbal test even though I’m a native speaker of English…I’ve read some JLPT materials and they gave me a similar feeling to the SAT: i.e. that the JLPT may be measuring proficiency in taking JLPTs as much as actual proficiency in Japanese. Of course you need to be good at Japanese to succeed at the JLPT. But the real Japanese language proficiency test is living, reading and speaking independently, as an adult, in a Japanese environment.
>Basically listening to something in Japanese i.e. a news broadcast as it streams and >repeating it whilst its being said.
Yes, I did (and do) do things like that. With movies like “The Matrix” and “Independence Day” [Japanese dubs]. I like them both so much that I know most of the dialogue now; I like to speak along with Agent Smith and Morpheus :). Also, I parrot things I watch on Japanese TV, especially jokes; I’m watching TV as I write this. Also, I used to record my voice reading newspaper articles and dictionary definitions. I even downloaded some beats and recorded myself rapping newspaper articles. All of these work well, and I think they’re a great idea, because they do give you that output practice minus the risk of making mistakes because you’re merely imitating good (native) Japanese.
khatzumoto said,
April 25, 2007 @ 11:28 pm
Oh and, memorizing lyrics to real songs, especially hip-hop, was also great, effective fun.
khatzumoto said,
April 25, 2007 @ 11:29 pm
>your readers /fans
（笑）”fans”…I love it
Lingo said,
April 26, 2007 @ 4:54 am
I’m not studying Japanese, but on the topic of music, I love Tujiko Noriko lots. In addition to the links you gave, http://wwitv.com/portal.htm has *a lot* of Japanese TV stations streaming live, as well as those from other countries. Personally, I prefer listening to the radio for news than TV, since 1.) the commercials aren’t as distracting, and 2.) understanding radio news usually means one can understand TV news, though it doesn’t seem to go the other way around. At any rate, good entry. I enjoy reading your blog :^).
JDog said,
April 30, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
OK, I tried to do that news while I was sleeping thing last night. I just couldn’t do it. I put my laptop on a chair, but had to turn it off because it lit up my room too much and it would’ve hindered my sleep. How can you do it LOL? My sleep is precious to me! OK, so this isn’t really a question, just a comment.
khatzumoto said,
April 30, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
LOL. Yeah, if it hinders your sleep, let it go. I actually have trouble sleeping *without* something going, although I did once wake up in absolute terror when Frodo (Lord of the Rings, Japanese dub) started screaming in my ears.
>it lit up my room too much
If it’s light and not noise that’s the problem for you, you could change your laptop power settings so that closing the lid doesn’t put the machine into sleep mode.
JDog said,
May 2, 2007 @ 12:24 am
Haha, that’s funny about the Frodo thing. Yeah, good idea about changing the power settings…I think that sound might be the problem, too, but I’ll give it a try.
James S said,
June 30, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
Hey man, nice content you have on your blogs. I’ve been studying Chinese hardcore for the past year… not quite as hardcore as you though…. maybe 4-5 hours of listening/speaking/study per day. Anyway… I thought my vocabulary was good until I started listening to the news this past week. Such a ****ing wake up call.. So I’ve just incorporated 2 hours of news into my studies everyday.
But… I have translating-OCD… so like if i here something I dont understand, I immediately stop it, and bring up the transscript and translate it. And since this is all new vocab to me.. it feels like I am constantly pausing and translating. It took me 4 hours to get through a 9 minute broadcast, and then when I played it again after translating it all.. I still had trouble understanding most of it. Please tell me it will get easier!
khatzumoto said,
June 30, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
>Please tell me it will get easier!
Haha! It definitely will get easier, James S. It will take a while. It may not be soon. But it is a finite process. There are a finite number of words and it will take you a finite amount of time to learn them. And that “translating OCD” you speak of, I have it, too. A compulsion to know…to really, really, know. Because of that drive, I look up words that I really don’t need to look up any more because I can now infer their readings and meanings (in Japanese). But it is also because of that drive that I can read and watch whatever I want know. So, it’s all good.
>It took me 4 hours to get through a 9 minute broadcast
That’s some serious mining. But is is natural to have a very assymetric relationship between the running length of the material and the time to process it. When I think about it, it would take me several hours spread out over 7-10 days to learn a 4-minute song.
Yorkii said,
July 22, 2007 @ 11:56 pm
thanks for the link to the TBS website. Absolutely perfect!! short and sweet videos with a near perfect transcription written next to it.
m（＿＿）m
Kevin said,
January 13, 2008 @ 5:21 am
NHK also does a world news podcast - I’ve yet to check out the ones you recommend Khatz, so I can’t say how it stacks up but it’s more input nonetheless:
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/japanese/index_body_j.html
Click on either the windows media player or real player (shudder) link underneath “日本語” on the right-hand side.
Cheers
All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to Learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency » Understanding The News: James’ Success Story said,
March 30, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
[…] while back, I wrote an article on how to teach yourself to understand Japanese (TV) news to basically 100% comprehension. […]
Steffen said,
April 8, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
Hey Khatzumoto, thanks for a great site. I’ve been reading about your techniques for about a week now and I’ve started mining for sentences. I gotta say, I really believe in the method, although I of course haven’t seen any real results yet.
Anyway, I was wondering what kind of application do you use to rip the sound of the FNN newscast?
Again, thanks for a great site
Steffen
khatzumoto said,
April 16, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Actually, I just recorded it analog, in real time, to my minidisc player that was plugged into the headphone jack of my laptop…a little old school, but it worked.
Steffen said,
April 16, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
In case there’s anyone else wondering about software, I’ve found the perfect solution. The application is called SoundTap and can be found at http://www.nch.com.au/soundtap/index.html
It’s not freeware, but I don’t think 20 bucks is a lot to pay for an application you will use a lot. There’s probably some good freewares out there though, if anyone bothers to look
Tyler said,
June 22, 2008 @ 8:24 am
@steffen (and anybody wanting to record streaming audio):
Unless I’m misunderstanding, you can do the same thing for free with Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) by recording with the Stereo Mix option. (on Windows, make sure it’s enabled for your sound card). The downside is it’s realtime so you have to listen to all of it while you’re recording all of it.
Btw thanks for such a great site Khatz!
Noah said,
July 17, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Yes, I agree completely with Tyler. I have used Audacity for all my sound needs, including editing, and I love how well and simple it works.
Thank you Khatz for the great article!! I am really excited to try your method. How much of your blog do you recommend reading before starting hardcore Heisig Kanji learning? So far I have about 50 or so learned.
Also, thanks everyone for the news links because where I live we have only one public TV station that broadcasts Japanese Television, and thats only on Saturday nights!