Japan in general? Not much. The major cities does have signs in English, that said I did end up on a metro station in Tokyo with no English.
The majority of restaurants I visited also had an English menu, but a translation app goes a long way. Even with the funky results.
The two weeks I spent there, very few spoke English. Hotel staff, spoke some. From my experience and my preparations before my trip, is not to count on speaking English. Hand gestures, phrases goes a long way. The people are super helpful.
Ah, ok, totally understandable Yes, next time you come on your own (or less than the entire family ), do let me know (assuming I´m still here).
Man, I kinda regret not having gone to Akiba more during peak Covid when the place was pretty much empty. I just can´t bring myself to go there nowadays with all the new tourists swarming the place
Gotta catch´em all
Yeah, that would unfortunately be a problem… (and also a huge loss for you - not necessarily the bathouses, but definitely the hot springs)
Edit: Though obviously not an insurmountable problem, as Norseman rightly mentions (I keep forgetting about the existence of band-aids, but yes, tattoo-friendly and private onsens are a thing).
Really? I remember a lot more people understanding me when I went there. Maybe it is the vast gulf of time between then and now has begun distorting my memories.
Almost no one spoke English, a lot of pointing and smiling. Some times a bit of rudimentary English phrases helped. There was only one instance where we met someone who was able to carry a full conversation in English. It was two teen twins, they had lived a few years in the U.K with their parents. They approached us, due to the danish flag on my backpack, they were very excited to talk English with us and they were Scandinavian nerds, apparently. Other than that, it was a lot of bowing and saying Arigato gozaimasu and bowing again.
Damn I remember a few people who were passingly conversational with our group, yeah it wasn’t a meaningful dialogue but still… Ah well, it is a country of 125 million people so I guess I was lucky or I am just remembering the outliers because it stands out more.
At he very least they will understand Ochoa and try to help him, so long as he is polite and understanding then at the very least he won’t have any issues. Even if he is reduced to hand gestures he will have no issue so long as he is clear.
Plus he has a phone and he is a grown man. We don’t need to chaperone him unless he needs a chaperone in which case I would love another trip to Japan because clearly it has been too long since I last visited.
Yeah we had a few people who would ask us a question or two about Australia in some very ropy English especially when we toured our sister school over there. Now those kids were good at English, the ones who were learning it at least, better than some of the people in my school.
Almost every time I thought I said “my apologies” I was saying “excuse me”.
I wouldn’t let the language barrier get in the way, it isn’t that hard to get around major cities, especially with a smartphone. I would suggest that with a first time visit, book a pre planned trip that fits your needs. So you have a guide plan from A to B, it will take care of the major issues like which train to take and how to find your hotel.
You can also upgrade and get @Rimland and If you want the best experience get his girlfriend. Then things become easy.
I think you were lucky during your trip with encountering quite a few people who could (or rather were willing to) speak English. My first stay here was over a decade ago and it was surprisingly bad then, and during the last 6 (Jesus fu*k!!!) years that I´ve been living here it hasn´t really improved at all (at least in Tokyo - I found Kansai people to be more proactive in this regard). It really depends on who you bump into.
Indeed. The tech helps a lot and Japanese people are happy to help, even if they barely understand what you want. At least these days with the massive influx of tourists a lot of places like major stations and such tend to have staff in place specifically to help guide confused visitors.
Arigato gozaimasu (and sumimasen) and bowing repeatedly get you a long way here (I should know ). Plus, there is never such thing as enough bowing!
I did a lot of bowing when I came home. I even bowed to the luggage personal at the airport when they almost ran me over in their cart, then I realised I was home again and people are pricks.
Where in Japan they would announce their arrival, where in Denmark you are lucky if they yell at you.
When we got home a quarter of our group got held up at airport security because they didn’t declare their hidden ninja star keychains They were these shitty mechanical keychains, you did something and they revealed some blunted teeth.
They thought us holdouts were being pills when we said it was a bad idea to buy them.
Ah ok, I wouldn´t be surprised if most of those chats occured over there (especially in Osaka; Kyoto people can be a hit or miss to put it mildly…).
I´ll make sure to pass on the 5-star review
That being said, Mr. and Mrs. @Norseman were the first visitors I had the pleasure of treating here, so the service might have been a bit rough at times. I´ve since done some more practice and research.
If it only took two weeks for you to catch that habit, then you can imagine my utter confusion and despair (and the weird looks I get) when I visit back home in Slavistan once or twice a year.
Getting tired of this place. My targets have been right in front of me for days but my weapons still haven’t arrived. I’ll have to move in tonight… without them.
Random pictures I found from when I was working as a Hotel night porter.
The pillow with the red spots is actual blood from a nose bleed a kid had in one room. The parents asked for a new one so the dirty one had to be disposed.
Yes, next time you come on your own (or less than the entire family 
), do let me know (assuming I´m still here).
(and also a huge loss for you - not necessarily the bathouses, but definitely the hot springs)
). Plus, there is never such thing as enough bowing!
