I’m literally taking a break from planning a 2-week Japan trip in the fall and have been stressing all day because our translator (my weaboo friend who just so happens to actually be a native speaker) dropped out of the trip this morning, so I went to Lemmy to relax for a second and this was the first post I saw
Google lens and Google translate does a really good job at translation.
A lot of signs are in English.
If you’re really concerned, this book is really great “Japanese Point-and-Speak Phrasebook”
Source: I was there last year.
Those worked great for me when I was in Japan. Google Maps was also great for getting around, it would have been really hard to navigate without it.
The hardest part was navigating services. It was really hard to figure out how to get IC cards and cell service, and getting online tickets was a nightmare dealing with horribly buggy websites. I normally like to plan things on the fly when I travel, but for Japan I really recommend doing research ahead of time and getting tickets for things you want in advance.
“Japanese Point-and-Speak Phrasebook”
I’ve been seeing this title come up a lot in my planning. This comment might be the thing that pushes me to getting it!
Unless you are planning to do something very specific that requires a lot of verbal communication, you don’t need a translator to enjoy two weeks in Japan.
Put a translator app on your phone (one that works without an internet connection) and get a pocket guide of common phrases. The Japanese will largely respect that you are trying to communicate in their language, and you’ll find quite a few who understand English.
People are very friendly there, and many speak some amount of english, especially in Tokyo. A lot of signs have English translation on them too. Learn some polite phrases and try your best, and use a translator app if needed. You will do just fine!
This is what I’ve been hearing a lot. Still, it seems a bit rude to go there without anyone in our party who can fluently communicate. I suppose I’ve got plenty of time to brush up on some simple polite phrases!
Gotta check out the YuruYuri sewer covers.
https://www.city.toyama.lg.jp/kurashi/suido/1010356/1010360/1014079.html
Also try to avoid visiting during their golden week celebration.
Went there myself for a 10 day trip last year and bought a 14 day sim card for about $40 that covered translation using google lens. Also Tokyo is extremely English friendly with subtitles literally everywhere even road signs
You don’t need any sort of translators. Just make sure to do your research first. You’ll be fine (travelled there twice).
Pro tip: if you’re not a weeaboo, Japan is pretty boring and stuffy. Speaking from experience.
Or youre into, food, alcohol, winter sports, warfare, or beatiful country side.
Japan has some the finest representations of the listed items in the world, and for some of those categories arguably the best.
Japan isnt just anime and cringe.
Not a weaboo insofar as I don’t like anime, but I love contemporary Japanese architecture/Japandi design and their denim culture. The rest of the people in our group all have their own interests in going. I’m not particularly worried about not enjoying the trip, but losing our resident duoglot has killed a bit of my excitement
I lived in Japan for a year and I was under a microscope for a few months until they were sure I wasn’t a fetishizing weeb. My hosts and people I met had many ways of working these inquiries into the conversation. But it became clear very soon that weebs looove Japan, but most Japanese I met don’t love them back.
We can shit on Google for a lot of things, but if you travel to Japan, you’ll be thankful for Google lens and Google maps. Lens because it can translate whatever you point it at, and maps because it can figure out which subway route to take.
Also install a IC card reader app so you can check your balance before getting stuck somewhere.
An ic reader helps if you’re not actively paying attention. When you swipe your card it gives you the balance too for those who don’t know. I recommend getting a suica card at the airport and just load it up, you can use it for all sorts of travel vehicles, shops and vending machines. Including at the airport on the way home, no reason to just load it with 10 bucks at a time. I just chucked 50 bucks on there for my couple week stay. Google maps is actually amazing for the trains. Takes a sec to figure it out but it’s great.
I know kawaii and neko. That’s all I need.
Give it about a year and a half, and everyone who said “I’d never wear smart glasses, that’s a stupid idea” will be ready to plunk down the money for that shit, when they can literally put live subtitles in your field of vision, 100 percent perfectly, in real time, guaranteed.
Shit will be like the universal translator, in Star Trek. People won’t even bother trying to learn each other’s languages, anymore. Motherfuckers will be married for fifteen years, and literally just talk to each other with their translator glasses on, the whole time. Then if there’s an extended power and internet outage, they’ll be like “oh, shit…without the live subtitles, all we’re gonna be able to do is dirty sex talk and asking each other where the bathroom is.”
Shit, that’ll mean even more extra babies conceived during blackouts than usual.
They never took off because they marketed it poorly. Just partner up with Dragonball Z and make them look like scouters and they’ll sell out immediately.
fair way off perfect translation
Not perfect, but a lot of translation is scary good these days. Of course there may be times when errors get introduced, so for precise communication you’d need human review, but you can throw college level essays into something like https://deepL.com and a lot of times you’d never know the difference.
The days of “this is obviously badly machine translated” are pretty much gone.
I want to visit Taco Bell in Japan
I mean, it’s pretty easy to dismiss this desire, but our chain foods in other countries can be quite unique. You can have a burger and a sauna in Finland at a McDonalds. A beer in Germany. Spain’s version of McD’s is insane. And that’s just the arches. Japan has a waiting line at KFC for Christmas because it’s become a tradition. I get why it would be cool to see how what we grew up with differs on the other side of the world.
I went to a McDs in Rome and it was fookin trash. But I mean, its my fault for going to a chain in Rome…I ate at much nicer places otherwise.
I personally recommend FamilyMart for the better quality and price of most things (especially fresh food).
