''Hiragana Times'' (ひらがなタイムズ) is a magazine published in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, and its audience is foreigners residing in Japan. The ''Hiragana Times'' is unique in that all the articles are written in both English and Japanese, with no bias between the languages. It has been published monthly in English and Japanese since 1986.

Background and profile

The name of ''Hiragana Times'' was inspired by the fact that all

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

in the magazine have

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

translations adjacent to it. This is known as

furigana is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known ...

, and it allows more novice readers to comprehend the articles in both languages. The magazine is published monthly and contains articles of cultural importance to its readers with a mix of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

stories.

References

External links

Hiragana Times official website
1986 establishments in Japan Bilingual magazines Expatriates in Japan Local interest magazines Magazines established in 1986 Magazines published in Japan Monthly magazines published in Japan {{local-mag-stub