Public Service Announcement for Yokohama City

30th April 2025

This week’s edition is on ‘public information in simple Japanese’.

Yokohama City is focusing efforts on making public information available in “simple Japanese”… Japanese that is easy to understand even for people who are just starting to learn Japanese

Multilingual pages

The Yokohama City Website provides information in “simple Japanese” on insurance, pensions, how to dispose of rubbish, and where to go for advice, so that foreign residents can get the information they need for daily life. In addition to “simple Japanese”, information is available in English, Chinese (simplified) and Korean.

Koho Yokohama

The main articles in the city’s newsletter, “Koho Yokohama”, are rewritten in “simple Japanese”, and posted on the website. As well as this, “Catalog Pocket”, the newsletter viewing app, allows users to read them in 9 languages (English, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese).

For details on ‘multilingual pages’ and ‘Koho Yokohama’, click ‘Language’ on the top page of the Yokohama City website.

Pointing Sheet

At the wards’ general information counters and family register sections, a ‘pointing sheet’ has been created to make it easier for foreigners to tell staff what they need. 

The sheet is written in “simple Japanese”, English, Chinese (simplified), and Korean, and has illustrations.