Autumn leaves are at their best at the Tateyama mountain range in Japan's Northern Alps. Around the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, which connects Toyama and Nagano prefectures, leaves on trees like Erman's birch and butterfly maple have changed color from green to red or yellow, making the mountains look colorful. This year, the leaves changed color about a week later than normal.

Note: The Japanese language does not have a fixed system of differentiating singular and plural, but some words like ki (tree) can be made plural by using it twice, as a compound word. An iteration mark is added after the kanji character of ki, as in the original text, and the plural form is pronounced kigi.

Japanese original

The 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 to 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.