2018 Volume 25 Issue 1 Pages 81-117
NHK launched a simplified Japanese news service on the Internet (NEWS WEB EASY) in April 2012 to improve news accessibility for foreign residents in Japan. Simplified news scripts are compiled daily by a Japanese language instructor and a news reporter working together using a custom news rewrite support system comprising a rewrite support editor and a reading support information editor. The rewrite support editor identifies difficult expressions and proposes simpler alternatives with similar expression search function, and the reading support information editor helps the Japanese language instructor add auxiliary information such as furigana and glossary information to the simplified news scripts. Both functions feature learning mechanisms that improve the precision of news simplification. This news rewrite support system has been in daily use since 2012. A questionnaire evaluation administered to the Japanese instructors and reporters who produce NEWS WEB EASY showed that they highly evaluated both editors. Analysis of the rewrite support editor’s log revealed that the difficult word rate and sentence length in the rewritten news were less than in the original and were similar across rewriters.
