World News for Students of English

26-06-2026 15:00

Japan has a problem with loneliness because it has the world’s oldest population. Almost 30% of the people are over 65 years old.

Many old people live alone because their children move far away for work. Last year, nearly 77,000 people died alone in their houses, and nobody found them for days or months. Now, some companies help them; for example, yogurt delivery workers talk to old people every morning to check if they are healthy. But young people are also lonely because they have too much pressure at work.

The government even made a special Minister of Loneliness to fix this problem. Lonely people can now use phone apps to buy a conversation partner to have someone to talk to.

Difficult words: loneliness (the unhappy feeling you have because you are alone and do not have any friends or people to talk to), pressure (a stressful and difficult feeling when you have too much hard work or when people expect too much from you), lonely (sad because you are without anyone around).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.