Society

87 phrases

Current affairs29 This is the register of the evening news, built on dense Sino-Japanese compounds you rarely hear in conversation. 「政府は来年度の予算案を国会に提出した」and 「内閣支持率が過去最低を記録した」pack whole political processes into single nouns — 予算案, 支持率. Learn the 与党/野党 pairing in 「与党と野党の対立が深まっている」, and note how 記録した here means 'hit/registered', not 'wrote down'.
Economy29 Economic Japanese runs on cause-and-effect chains and a fixed vocabulary of movement. 「円安の影響で輸入品の価格が上昇している」links a weak yen to rising prices, while 「物価の上昇が家計を圧迫している」lets prices literally 'squeeze' the household budget. Learn the directional verbs as sets: 引き上げ/引き下げ for rates, 上昇/急落 for prices, and 下方修正 — the newsroom word for a downgraded forecast.
Social issues29 Social-issue Japanese leans on four-character compounds that name a whole problem at once: 少子高齢化 (declining birthrate plus aging) in 「少子高齢化が社会に深刻な影響を及ぼしている」, and 過疎化 in 「過疎化が進み、地方の集落が消滅の危機にある」. Watch the set collocations — problems 及ぼす影響, become 深刻化, or get flagged as 問題視されている, as in the marine-pollution line. Memorize these as blocks, not word by word.

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