Pro-tip for tourists: if you speak English LOUDER AND SLOOOWEEEER, you'll bypass any language barrier.
My wife stayed in a rural town near Shichigahama for a week. Nobody spoke English except a few students. But the citizens did speak Japanese louder and slower, showing that's a universal trait. It actually helped, as my wife knew SOME Japanese.
Hilariously enough, in Japan it kinda sorta works not really but ish... They have so many loan words from English that if you just say an English word in a Japanese accent it might be the right one. Like the word for print is purinto, hotel is hotelu (hoteru), and camera is kamera.
They also get taught English in school for multiple years, and English is on almost every sign in major metro areas
Travelling to Japan while only knowing a couple of phrases went perfectly fine due to most people being able to understand what I needed them to, even when my wife and I got lost and had a group of 6 or so people at a local hospital frantically trying to help us find our hotel
Is the u pronounced? I recently learned katakana and it seems like the u variant is used to just get the consonant, i.e. if you pronounce words by leaving out the u they often match more closely to the English word than if you do pronounce the u (or to (ト), because tu doesn't exist, it's tsu). The two examples you gave match that thesis.
You need to put your foot down demand that they speak English to you and abuse them if they refuse. Most people don't know this, but it's hazing ritual in a lot of countries for locals to mess with tourists by speaking made up languages to them, they actually all know English, because that's the only actual human language that exists.
✍️ noted, any more tips?
Take of your underwear if that doesn't work
gásp
ake mushrooms
As someone who went to the greater Tokyo area about a month ago. I can unironically confirm that pretty much everything does have subtitles. (in the form of text translation and most workers speak some sort of english/have someone available that speaks english)
As someone who lives in Japan, that is true as long as you stay inside the tourist bubble. Once you start venturing into places not meant for visitors, the difficulty goes from 0 to 100 real quick. That said, sometimes those experiences of struggling communication can be among the best you’ll have here.
I lived in Busan Korea back in the nineties before it was developed and before it was exporting its pop culture. I remember struggling to even get a Coke out of a vending machine. It was really difficult, but since I was young and adventurous, it was also super fun.
By the time I went to Fukuoka a couple times for visa runs, I had that expat sixth sense that allowed me to navigate around with next to no knowledge of the language. I was able to get cabs, take the subway, find my hotel, get food (though I didn't always know what I was ordering) etc.
I still laugh to this day at my attempts to play pachinko when I stumbled upon such establishment. The people inside were particularly entertained with my nonsense.
Ye, I did go out a little bit of the Tokyo tourist area and it was a bit confusing with restaurants but not bad either. Tech really helps with all of that nowadays. DeepL did some heavy lifting there.
Thats interesting. So you were able to navigate and peruse the town with relative ease?
Pretty much yea, the hardest part was the train but tbh that's because I'd never been on a train so I wasn't sure how the map worked. Took me like 15 minutes and a couple missed trains to figure it out. Google maps is actually amazing for this, assuming you're staying in the greater Tokyo area.
[Foreign language]
When you arrive in Japan ... you automatically become an NPC
More importantly, at the urinals how do they properly aim their piss what with all those huge pixels
they obviously have upscalers in their brains
POV: Your babble fish ate your universal translater
It's as if you are in an isekai
An underpowered one; In Another World With My Smartphone, trying to make a hotel understand that my wallet was stolen, using Google Translate, while they increasingly seem to question my sanity.
The name isn't long enough
You just need more EXP to unlock the Appraisal skill
The funny thing is that Japanese kanji sometimes do have subtitles, and these may even be in the Latin script.
Didn't bring the remote to turn them on?
I prefer dubbed Japan anyways
You made the mistake of going to "Japan *RaWs*™"
