Kumamoto: Information for foreign residents is provided in easy Japanese on a support website launched by information technology company WizTry for people affected by the July 28 powerful earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture. Easy Japanese is in the spotlight as a way to disseminate information to foreigners in Japan, especially at the time of disasters such as a recent powerful earthquake that hit the southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto.
According to Thai News Agency, a survey targeting foreigners living in Tokyo revealed that 41.3 percent of respondents expressed a preference for reading information written in easy Japanese, a figure higher than the 35.9 percent who sought information in English. Nobuko Inoue of Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation Tsunagari, which conducted the survey and works to promote and raise awareness about easy Japanese, explained the trend. "It's probably because the nationalities of foreigners living in Japan have diversified, and fewer people are from English-speaking countries and regions," Inoue stated.
The crux of giving out information in easy Japanese is to avoid using onomatopoeia, mimetic words, words adopted from foreign languages, and ambiguous expressions, and to use short and clear sentences, according to the foundation. For example, "kyanseru," which derives from the English word cancel, can be replaced with "yameru" in easy Japanese. Similarly, "moraeru," meaning "you can get," can be used for "teikyo-suru," which means to provide.
In Kumamoto, people from Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, account for more than half of foreign residents. An official from the Kumamoto prefectural government's international affairs division noted, "We have many people whose native languages are not English. We are trying to provide information in easy Japanese rather than in English."
On July 29, the day after the 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which measured up to 7, the highest level on Japan's seismic intensity scale, WizTry, an information technology company in Kumamoto, created a website (https://kumamoto-shien.jp/) to provide affected people with necessary information. This includes an easy Japanese page for foreign residents (https://kumamoto-shien.jp/yasashii). The page for foreigners includes messages such as, "Mizu wo kubaru basho ga arimasu. Okane wa irimasen," which means there are places where you can get water and no money is needed.
WizTry President Kotaro Suematsu expressed his hopes that the company's easy Japanese page will assist foreigners who often find themselves excluded from critical information.