So for a year or so now I’ve been reading the news in Japanese. By ‘reading’ I mean that when I started, I couldn’t really read the news. Even now I certainly can’t read all of the news, but I can read most things within the range of topics that I’m used to (accidents, crime, disasters, etc) without having to look anything up. I’ve been using feedmejapanese.com to SRS the news and more recently jp.wikipedia.org for additional material. My news/wiki stats are as follows:
Sentences Words Kanji
1113        2569   1213

Those #’s refer to unique words/kanji.

Basically, what I did was subscribe to this feed – Excite世界びっくりニュース.  The articles are short and often interesting.  I’d say it took less than a month before I was flying through murders and car accidents.  I don’t do it everyday, but a few times a week I skim the headlines and go through any articles that catch my eye and add more sentences to my SRS.  I realize that SRS-ing in the beginning can suck because its not very fun.  Consider it a small hill that you need to get over so that you can start to really read.  15-20 minutes 3-5 times a week for a month should be enough .

So anyways, I’m going to do some Japanese translations now and then and I’ll break them down just like the Thai.

I looked up 2 words while translating this, but I already knew what they had to be. When reading for fun I rarely look stuff up until I’ve seen it a bunch of times and its starting to bother me that I still don’t know what the word is.

銀行のドライブスルーの窓口で、現金200ドルと一緒にマリファナとコカインが入った小袋を“貯金”した男が逮捕された。

水曜日、ワコビア銀行の従業員が現金と一緒にドラッグを発見して警察に通報した。口座情報から警察は38歳の男を逮捕、また、男の車からはマリファナたばこ3本が見つかったという。

男は麻薬所持容疑に問われており、3000ドルの保釈金を支払って釈放された。男がなぜ現金と一緒に麻薬を預け入れようとしたのかは不明。

A man was arrested while trying to deposit $200 along with a bag containing cocaine and marijuana at a bank drive-thru, Wednesday. The teller who received the deposit at Wachovia Bank notified police who arrested the man. 3 marijuana cigarettes were found in the man’s car.
The man is charged with possession of narcotics and was released on $3000 bail.
It is unknown why the man tried to deposit drugs along with the cash.

How I might  SRS this article –

• ドライブスルーの窓口で  – drive-thru window
• コカインが入った小袋  –  bag of cocaine
• 男が逮捕された。       – man was arrested
• 銀行の従業員が      –  bank employee
• ドラッグを発見して   – found drugs…
• 警察に通報した      —  reported to the police
• 男の車から          – from a/the man’s car
• 保釈金を支払って釈放された  – released after having paid bail

Keep it short.  Don’t add more than 1 word at a time you don’t know.  I remember when I first started, I immediately started seing the same few phrases over and over again in many articles.  I would SRS all of them.  As long as one word is different its ok to throw it in there.  You can always delete it later.