## 1 Introduction
In order to attract international tourists to regional cities, it is necessary to verify the actual conditions and effects of the development not only in major cities, where studies are actively being carried out, but also with regard to regional cities. Furthermore, if all these languages are written together on a sign, the size of the letters and pictograms becomes too small, and the readability is decreased. Therefore, it is necessary to consider an appropriate notation method for both Japanese and non-Japanese speakers. Specifically, the \"comprehensibility\" of a signage includes visibility and conspicuity, of which the size of the text is a part. The following factors were included in \"comprehensibility\": Conspicuity--the degree to which the eye is drawn to an object in the visual field; Visibility--the degree to which the presence and shape of an object is easily  
Figure 1: Signs located at the study site. (**a**) Example of a sign in the target area with all notations in both English and Japanese and some in Korean and Chinese. (**b**) Example of a sign in the target area that is only written in Japanese. visible; Legibility--the degree to which the appearance and meaning of a sentence can be easily read; Understandability--the degree to which text content is easily understood; and Distinguishing--the degree to which it is easy to recognize objects and scenes [11]. There are many factors that contribute to the comprehension of signs including color, font, and size within the sign alone. In addition, there are factors in the surrounding environment such as the location of the sign and lighting. However, the complexity of signage needs to be limited to prevent excessive cognitive processing, according to [PERSON] et al. [12] In particular, visually impaired people may miss information or need to move closer to the actual sign [12]. To design a sign that is easily comprehensible regardless of language, gender, age, or physical characteristics, it is necessary to be as inclusive as possible and to make signage as concise as possible. Considering the recent increase in the number of international tourists visiting Japan, this study focused on the influence of different languages on signs and their relationship with other factors. [PERSON] et al. [13] compared different nationalities with regard to wayfinding at airports and reported that there were clear differences in which sign types were most appropriate and which were preferred. [PERSON] et al. [14] also suggested that there was a significant relationship between sign comprehension and nationality, with some signs being interpreted very differently in different cultures. However, although the participants in each of these studies were of different nationalities, the language of the signage was English only, so it is not clear how tourists from non-English speaking countries would understand the signage, or how they would evaluate signage in several languages. In a study focusing on the language of the signs, [PERSON] et al. [15] investigated the signage on escalators in Malaysia including the availability of safety information, standardization, and languages used. However, although the percentage of each language used is listed, the influence of language differences on users is not clear. The study by [PERSON] et al. [6] also found in the interviews with residents that there was a need for multilingual signs to help tourists, but the effectiveness of these signs has not been investigated. Therefore, an investigation into the influence of different languages on signage and an evaluation of multilingual signs may be helpful in considering the most suitable signage design for non-English speaking countries or countries with a high number of non-English speaking tourists. Based on the above study, this study aimed to investigate the following two points. * The first objective was to investigate how the visual environment is evaluated by different national languages in a regional city tourist destination.