Takamatsu International Association Japanese Food Guide Digital Book

The Takamatsu International Association has completed a digital book that allows people to quickly look up - or ask - food names or ingredients that are used, when you go to a supermarket or restaurant. This Japanese Food Guide was produced in February 2021. It is very convenient for a wide range of uses, including for those with religious food restrictions, or allergies.

Takamatsu City is home to 5,000 foreign residents, or 1.2% of its population (as of July 30, 2021). To help them, the Takamatsu International Association has prepared guidebooks in six languages: plain Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, and Tagalog. If you download digital books to your cell phone or tablet, you can easily check them out while shopping. Some students at a Japanese language school said, "It's embarrassing to go shopping with paper materials," so the Takamatsu International Association decided to develop a digital book.

It categorizes common foods into 17 categories, including vegetables, meat, seasonings, and allergens, and lists 406 foods. Illustrations are added to make it visually easier to understand. The site is organized from the standpoint of the user, with kanji notation and pronunciation, hiragana, katakana, and explanations. It can also be used in many other ways, such as;

• As a tool to support foreign residents, when emergency food is being distributed at evacuation centers during disasters
• As teaching materials for the study of Japanese
• As a tool for Japanese people while eating abroad

Using the message card on the digital book, you can write the name of a food with your finger on the screen. You can write it down and show it to people at a restaurant, or other places, when you want to tell them what you can't eat, or when you want to check what's in the food.