Easy Japanese news in translation: Water lilies bloom in botanical garden in Miyazaki Prefecture
Water lilies, often likened to "water fairies," are now at their best at the Nobeoka botanical garden in the city of Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture. In the garden's pond, cute white flowers peek out from between the round leaves floating on the water's surface. According to garden officials, water lilies tend to close their flowers little by little after noon, so the best time to admire them is in the morning. They can be enjoyed until around August.
Japanese original
Easy Japanese news is taken from the Mainichi Shogakusei Shimbun, a newspaper for children. This is perfect material for anyone studying Japanese who has learned hiragana and katakana. We encourage beginners to read the article in English followed by Japanese, or vice versa, to test their comprehension.
A fresh set will be published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4 p.m., Japan time. Click/tap here for past installments.
Intermediate learners who do not need English assistance can directly access the Mainichi Shogakusei Shimbun site here. Furigana (hiragana) is added to all kanji in the text.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Mainichi
2 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Edging Toward Japan 62: In Search of a Japan of cool summers and light nights
There is a curious historical footnote that tends to be forgotten about the Japanese imperial expansion of the late 19th and early 20th century -- largely remembered today as a remorseless expansion westwards and southwards over the Asian continent. It's easy to overlook the fact that there was also a small northern component of this expansion resulting in Japan wresting control for quite a long historical period of part of the island of Sakhalin, in modern day Russia. From 1905 until 1945, the Japanese administered the southern part -- and from 1918 to 1925 the entirety -- of this often overlooked island, meaning that you could travel all the way up the archipelago from the southern tip of Taiwan to the northern tip of Sakhalin without ever leaving Japanese jurisdiction. The Japanese colony on Sakhalin was called "Karafuto" and its third Director General was a man called Hiraoka Sadataro, who also happened to be the novelist Yukio Mishima's paternal grandfather. "Karafuto" is now a land pretty much lost to history, a piece of modern-day Russia that was once Japanese, but sounds like some fantasy landscape such as the imaginary country of Ihatov dreamt up in the 1920s by the Tohoku writer Kenji Miyazawa. The real Karafuto however was not a dreamscape, but a place sometimes bitterly fought over for its raw materials (timber, petroleum and fishing) with native peoples and bonded labourers moved around like chess pieces to make way for imperial ambitions. Karafuto popped up in my mind the other day when I was idly dreaming of a Japan that did not suffer from ever more brutally oppressive summers. Imagine a Japan, I was thinking, which you could visit in summer and where the days were long and the weather tolerably cool, how magical that would be. And then I realised that the fantasy cool-and-summery Japan must only be located in the lost geographical landscape of Karafuto. People often ask me about visiting Japan in the summer and I am often stuck for an answer. I realize that many people enjoy the rituals of a Japanese summer -- the clatter of yukata and geta, the hiss of the cicada, the fireworks, the festivals, the kawadoko (riverside) dining by the Kamo river in Kyoto. Many people visit Japan in summer and have a wonderful time. But as someone constitutionally incapable of handling the heat and humidity, Japan in summer is not for me. If I spent my summers in Japan, I would spend my entire time indoors, huddled up close to an air conditioner. I've been religiously avoiding Japanese summers since that of 1990, when I nearly dissolved in a sweaty puddle into the sheets in my unairconditioned 6-tatami-mat room in a boarding house in the Uzumasa area of Kyoto. Since then, I have rarely made an appearance in Japan in July or August. In fact, as the years have rolled on, and Japan's summers have got ever hotter, I have now also marked the months of June and September on my "Avoid" list. This is all decidedly inconvenient. Because it just happens that the months of June to September are also the time of year when I have the greatest opportunity to visit Japan with my school age children. I have often thought how we might square this circle. I've investigated temperatures in the traditional places of retreat from the summer heat like Karuizawa and Hakone, but they are still too hot for me. Hokkaido is more distant, but even if I trekked that far north, it still wouldn't be cool enough and would leave me dreaming of spending August like the British Royal Family in the Highlands of Scotland. It's a dilemma not being able to visit the country you most want to go at the time of year when you have the most time. So after looking up temperatures on the far periphery of Hokkaido, my eye looked out even further north on the map and I began to wonder if the Japanese gained possession (currently disputed) from the Russians of the Kuril Islands in the far north whether I might then have a suitably cool Japanese destination to visit in summer. Or I found myself dreaming of Sakhalin and half-regretting that the Japanese ever lost their colony there, which would have been quite perfect for my constitution. The controversial journalist Graham Hancock has been promoting for many decades the idea that at the end of the last Ice Age an advanced civilization, having found their native land unliveable due to radical climate change and rapidly increasing sea levels, took to their boats and headed off to new lands. I'm wondering if one day the Japanese will, by common consensus, proclaim their traditional homeland simply too hot to live in anymore and take to their boats and start again somewhere a lot cooler. They might do a deal on some uninhabited chunk of northern landmass and restart their civilization there, a remaking of "Karafuto" for those who simply can't hack the heat and humidity any more. @DamianFlanagan (This is Part 61 of a series) In this column, Damian Flanagan, a researcher in Japanese literature, ponders about Japanese culture as he travels back and forth between Japan and Britain. Profile: Damian Flanagan is an author and critic born in Britain in 1969. He studied in Tokyo and Kyoto between 1989 and 1990 while a student at Cambridge University. He was engaged in research activities at Kobe University from 1993 through 1999. After taking the master's and doctoral courses in Japanese literature, he earned a Ph.D. in 2000. He is now based in both Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and Manchester. He is the author of "Natsume Soseki: Superstar of World Literature" (Sekai Bungaku no superstar Natsume Soseki).
The Mainichi
2 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Retro Japan: Ex-Kyushu Imperial Univ. building boasts 1930 cutting-edge design
FUKUOKA -- The stately main building at the former Kyushu Imperial University's Faculty of Engineering here boasts a cutting-edge design from the time of construction in 1930. Approaching the building, one is first struck by its imposing presence. Upon closer inspection, the eaves molding covered with scratch-pattern tiles add a distinct variation to its exterior. The rounded corners, combined with art deco-style semi-cylindrical towers, lend a soft impression. The Faculty of Engineering's main building in Fukuoka's Higashi Ward was constructed in 1930. Its structural design was overseen by Ken Kurata (1881-1940), the university's architecture division head, while the aesthetic design was crafted by engineer Setsuzo Obara (1897-1953). The building was among the first to adopt reinforced concrete technology, which became mainstream after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. It boasts high seismic strength for its time and further enhanced fire resistance with scratch-pattern tiles. It has become an architectural symbol not only within present-day Kyushu University but also for Fukuoka. The eaves of the entrance porch feature circular stained glass, allowing red and green light to filter through. The transom at the entrance is adorned with stained glass depicting plant motifs. A wall of the fourth-floor conference room is adorned with a large oil painting, and the stylish furniture and carpet remain as they were at the time of construction. In 2023, it was designated as a registered tangible cultural property of Japan. (Japanese original by Minoru Kanazawa, Kyushu Photo and Video Department) * * * The Japanese version of this article was originally published on May 18, 2025. * * * This series explores Japan's architectural wonders and secrets of yesteryear. Read more Retro Japan articles here.
Japan Today
5 hours ago
- Japan Today
Millions sit China's high-stakes university entrance exam
While teachers and staff offered students their support, holding up signs of encouragement, some test takers, dressed in school uniforms, appeared panicked By Adrien SIMORRE Hopeful parents accompanied their teenage children to the gates of a busy Beijing test center on Saturday, among millions of high school students across China sitting their first day of the highly competitive university entrance exam. Nationwide, 13.35 million students have registered for the multi-subject "gaokao" series this year, according to the Ministry of Education, down from last year's record-high 13.42 million test takers. Outside the central Beijing secondary school, a proud parent who gave her name as Chen said "12 years of hard work have finally led to this moment" -- as she waved a fan in front of her daughter while the student reviewed her notes one last time before the test. "We know our kids have endured so much hardship," Chen told AFP, adding that she was not nervous. "I'm actually quite excited. I think my child is excellent, and I'm sure she will get the best score," she said. China's gaokao requires students to use all their knowledge acquired to this point, testing them on subjects including Chinese, English, mathematics, science and humanities. The exam results are critical for gaining admission to university -- and determining whether they will attend a prestigious or more modest institution. While teachers and staff offered students their support, holding up signs of encouragement, some test takers, dressed in school uniforms, appeared panicked, including a girl with tears in her eyes. "There's no need for us parents to add pressure. The children are already under a lot of it," said a woman named Wang, whose son had just entered the exam hall. Like many mothers, she wore a traditional Chinese qipao in hopes of bringing good luck. "I hope my son achieves immediate success and gets his name on the (list of high-scoring candidates)," Wang said with a smile. Higher education has expanded rapidly in China in recent decades as an economic boom pushed up living standards -- as well as parents' expectations for their children's careers. But the job market for young graduates remains daunting. As of April, 15.8 percent of people aged 16 to 24 living in urban areas were unemployed, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Due to this pressure, many Chinese students prepare for the gaokao from a young age, often with extra lessons after the regular school day. And every year education authorities are on guard against cheating and disruptions during the exam. This week, China's Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang called for a "safe gaokao", stressing the importance of a rigorous campaign against cheating. Areas around exam centers are closely guarded by police, with road lanes closed to traffic and several cities banning motorists from honking their horns so as not to disrupt the concentration of students. In some schools, facial recognition is even used to prevent fraud. While the university admission rate for gaokao test takers has exceeded 80-90 percent in recent years, many students disappointed with their results choose to repeat the exam. As there is no age limit for the test, some have become notorious for attempting the exam dozens of times, either after failing it or not getting into their top-choice university. One teacher at the Beijing school where parents saw off their children on Saturday estimated that only about 10 of the approximately 600 final-year students there would earn a place at one of the capital's top universities. Jiang, a final-year high school student who only gave one name, said he dreamt of attending a Beijing university, and was remaining calm shortly before his Chinese exam. "Even though the pressure is intense, it's actually quite fair," he told AFP. "I feel like all the preparations that needed to be made have been made, so there's really no point in being nervous now, right? "Whatever happens, happens. It's truly not something I can completely control." © 2025 AFP
