NHK Easier provides content for people wishing to practice Japanese.
NHK News Web is the online newspaper edited by NHK (日本放送協会), Japan's public broadcasting company. News Web Easy is a version targeted at children with simpler words, kanji and sentence structures, and with furigana (振り仮名).
NHK Easier gathers content from News Web Easy and presents it in a way optimized for language learners:
- partially (show on mouse hover) or fully disable furigana
- quick access to translations of words and expressions
- downloadable voice
- valid RSS feed to use in your news aggregator
- EPUBs to read stories on the go
Regarding the translations, NHK Easier relies on the EDICT Dictionary File and serves a subset optimized for each page.
NHK Easier is not affiliated with NHK.
The main feature of this website was inspired by a series of Web browser extensions called 10ten (previously Rikaikun/Rikaichan/Rikaichamp). You can use the extension to benefit from a quick-access Japanese dictionary working on any website!
If you prefer reading news directly on NHK News Web Easy, or regularly consult other website with furigana, install Furigana toggle (either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox) to hide them by default! You will be able to display them simply by hovering the kanji with your cursor. Alternatively, you can use the smartphone application Sync for NHK Easy News for offline reading.
As an addition to News Web Easy articles, you can also study NHK's introduction to Japanese for English speakers (also available in multiple languages).