Hir@gana Times

About ten years ago or so, I used to buy a monthly magazine called “Hir@gana Times“.

It’s a monthly magazine that used to cost ¥390 (about US$4) when I bought it.
I bought it to study Japanese. That’s the main purpose of the magazine. All of the articles are written in English and Japanese. The Japanese kanji characters everywhere in the articles have the ふりがな reading over them to assist people learning to read Japanese (my blog, BTW, also has ふりがな for all of the kanji. Hold your mouse over the kanji on this blog and it’ll pop up.)

I quit buying the magazine years ago but I thought about it today for some reason.
I decided to see if the magazine has a website…and of course it does.

It’s seems that the price of the magazine has gone up to ¥450 per issue…and most of their website is only available to paying members!
But it does have some free sections…and just like their print magazine, all of the kanji on the website has ふりがな. But their website does the ふりがな differently than I do on my blog…they have the ふりがな characters printed above the kanji just like in their magazine (and Japanese children’s books). I put the ふりがな on my blog as small pop-ups because I think that’s a better way to remember the kanji.

Anyways, if you want to see their website, it’s here.

And here’s an article from their site:

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

裁判員制度

In the 1930’s, Japan had a 裁判員制度 (jury system) in the courts similar to America has.

But it wasn’t popular and was changed in the early 1940’s to a system where professional judges determine the verdict of defendants in criminal cases, and it stayed that way…until today.

Beginning today (21 May 2009), courts in Japan are using the 裁判員制度 (jury system) again.

It’s surprising that the government decided to adopt this system…since polls conducted since the bill for this was passed into law five years ago consistently have shown that the majority of Japanese are against the idea of having a 裁判員制度 (jury system).

But the law was passed…and went into effect today.

Slightly different from the jury system in America, the Japanese 裁判員制度 (jury system) will consist of a panel of six jurors and three judges who will decided verdicts in court cases and decide what sentences to give those found guilty.
In cases where the jurors rule one way but the judges rule the other…the judges ruling will stand.

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The 新型インフルエンザ (New Type Flu (Swine Flu)) has spread to Tokyo. 😦
Until Wednesday, all of the cases of this flu were in the 関西地方 (Kansai area) of Japan…but two teenage girls from the 関東地方 (Tokyo area) went on a school trip to America and came back with the flu.

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The World Health Organization determined that once again Japanese women have the highest life expectancy rate in the world.

Japanese women live to be an average of 86 years old.

Men from a country near Italy that I’ve never heard of called San Marino have the longest life expectancy rate for men. Their average life span is 81 years.