Health ministry struggles to provide COVID-19 updates in foreign languages
The health ministry is struggling to keep non-Japanese updated on the rapidly escalating situation in a timely manner, hampered by a dearth of staff proficient in foreign languages.
Aichi offers foreign nationals multilingual support on new virus from China
Aichi Prefecture, where two people have been confirmed as infected with the new coronavirus from China, is calling on non-Japanese speakers in the prefecture to use its free multilingual translation service when they need to communicate with others regarding the virus. The Multilingual Call Center ...
Courtroom interpreters still in short supply in Japan as number of foreign defendants grows
A judge asks a Vietnamese defendant accused of breaking the Immigration Control Law whether the written indictment is correct. A court interpreter conveys the question to him in Vietnamese, using a microphone. "Everything is correct," he responds at the first hearing of his trial at ...
Parents in Japan use YouTube to teach bilingual baby talk that's good for any age
Mothers raising their kids in Japan head to YouTube to create a community that goes beyond basic parenting tips.
Tokyo's taxi drivers brush up their English to cash in on Olympics
"There are many ways to ask your passengers to fasten their seat belts. The easiest is to say, 'Seat belt please,' but you should never add the word 'take' as it then means you want that to be stolen," an English teacher said in ...
Shaken by Kobe quake, Peruvian works to help Hyogo's Spanish speakers in times of disaster
Roxana Oshiro, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, came to Japan in 1991 and was living in a dormitory in Kobe with her husband and child when the Great Hanshin Earthquake hit the region in 1995. After a violent jolt, she desperately kicked the door open ...
Hoping for a Japanese society in which all of its members can shine
Black Eye columnist Baye McNeil opens the new year with an email from a reader that illustrates the importance of language in dealing with multiracial individuals.
Japan going the wrong way in English-education reform
English-language education in Japanese schools should focus on reading and writing rather than conversation to build a strong foundation.
Plain Japanese, please: Amid tourism boom, easy form of language could help ease communication
With Japan targeted by an ever increasing flood of visitors, the plain form of Japanese is spreading as a more inclusive means of communication in situations ranging from disasters to tourism. "Every language must be respected, and when we communicate with people who don't speak ...
Most local governments in Japan have or plan multilingual disaster info services
A large majority of major Japanese cities recognize the need to provide multilingual information and aid to the growing number of foreign residents and tourists should a natural disaster occur, a Kyodo News survey found Thursday. The survey, conducted late last year, found that 52 ...
American linguists on Friday chose "they" as their word of the decade, recognizing the growing use of third-person plural pronouns as a singular form to refer to people who identify their sex as neither entirely male nor entirely female. Separately, the American Dialect Society bestowed ...
Scrabble casts spell over Asia with Welsh hugs and mustard seeds
Malaysian teenage Scrabble protege Tengku Ariff Shah can spell more English words than most adults in the Western world, but he doesn't always know what they mean. Ariff is among a swath of Asian youngsters who are turning the competitive Scrabble scene on its head ...
