Live translation of Japanese news available online

In the continuing wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster, many people are turning to Japanese channels as different and possibly more current news sources. For those of us who don’t understand Japanese, this can be a bit of a challenge. Luckily, there are a couple of ways that you can get around the language barrier if you are not conversant in Japanese.

NHK, the public broadcasting channel in Japan, offers NHK World, with TV broadcasts in English and radio broadcasts in 17 languages. NHK News offers bilingual, English-only and English subtitled shows.

Yokoso News offers the brilliant service of live translation of live Japanese NHK News broadcasts. You can watch them as a stand alone stream, or if you have access to NHK, you can listen along with watching the live broadcasts.

However you are getting your news, I hope that your thoughts, like mine, are with the people of Japan.