I Spent a Day Speaking ONLY English in Japan 

Aki you’re so brave. My social anxiety could never

Yep. I visit Tokyo every year and I never really any problem communicating in English. Most restaurants, trains and stores also have English translations too. But even then, I definitely encourage people to learn Japanese. Cool video! Nakano Broadway is one of my favorite places to visit.

I think it still depends on luck as not all the staff can really speak english even in the major cities. I visited the FFXIV's Eorzia cafe in Akihabara and was surprised the staff couldn't understand english and didn't really try, where as when I decided to visit the branch in Osaka the staff was more approachable and understood english. Funny enough it's also the older staff who seem to be more friendly and able to speak english as well, was late for my bus at Tokyo bus terminal for mt fuji and panicking. Went to the help desk and a nice old lady was able to explain in english and even help to refund my ticket fees and rebook. So thankful for her help

Now try only speaking Japanese to English people

When we went to Japan,we went to Tokyo and Kyoto and had no problems with communication. We had a wonderful experience one time on a train. We were very tired after walking all over the city and had gotten onto the wrong train. A lovely woman saw how frustrated we were and offered to help us get onto the right train. She got off the train with us and showed us where to go,even making sure we got on the train,went with us to the station we needed to get off at and then got back on the train to go home. She spoke English beautifully and was so kind.

Every time I have visited Japan I got around no problem and you start to pickup a few words to help. I found 99% of people there are friendly and willing help. I only ever had a few bad interactions. If' I ever did move there, Japanese classes would a major priority for me though.

Aki forgot to pretend she couldn't understand English - so she was responding to Japanese which someone who didn't know the language couldn't understand 😬 Other than that it was a good video ❤ Thanks Ak8 x

I tried learning Japanese in school years ago for a bit it didn’t work out and watching anime helped me understand a fair few words Japan is number 1 on my list on countries to go

I can hear the pain from the workers when they tried speaking English

For someone who doesn’t speak or understand Japanese, I found the tourist spots of Japan to be SO TOURIST FRIENDLY. You just need the train app, your mobile phone, a good wifi connection that you can rent in the airport, and the unli train/bus pass and you can go to pretty much any of the popular tourist areas. We traveled around the Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara just with these items. The staff at the train stations, bus drivers, police are mostly kind enough to help.

It was nice to see how they did their best to help you out. I think nowadays, outside of the countryside you can likely get quite far especially if you bring a translation application along.

The amount of bilingual people you encountered is pretty great, I like that a few of the train stations and help desks also seem to have staffed English speakers as well. This was a great video and an awesome concept, especially for those who might be nervous about traveling because of the language.

this was adorable. I got through Thailand with a lot of sign language and google translate, Korea I had a good guide, but when he wasn't available people were still very helpful despite being nowhere near touristy areas of either country. But seriously, if you're going to stay, and plan on being there for more than a week or two, Learn the Language, show respect to the people of the place. It was very funny though, the older guy in the thrift/consignment store "Oh, Iowa State" Loved that. :)

Bro the foreshadowing for future videos done in this video, Aki is being efficient as hell with content and I am living for it.

I travelled Japan solo a few years ago and had no trouble with minimal Japanese. I went to mostly big tourist places around Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima etc. It was a bit weird to see Aki ask directions in major stations which have English signage everywhere but it was interesting and useful to see her experiences.

This was a fun video! Though, they spoke a lot of Japanese with you which you understood and could respond to, even if you responded in English. I wouldn't be able to do that 😅

Loved this! I have two friends who live in Japan that I can rely on for help but its nice to know that I could go with my partner and we could get around without my friends(they both have toddlers lol) if need be. Especially since you pointed out that we can use google for the trains, i know google has real time written language scanning and translation as well as translating apps that can get you by. I hope I get to visit soon!!

Aki has lived in japan for 4 years… i remember the video that came out revealing she moved! How time flies 😂

I use google translate in Tokyo! I am really sucking at learning Japanese - learning language has never been my strongest point. I went to city hall yesterday and a lovely man used a translation device and helped me in English ! He even helped me fill out a form in Katakana he was so sweet

It's great to see Aki being her best self. All the best to her and her career.

The train workers are pretty good with English! I was extremely impressed!

When my family visited Japan in summer 2016 we had very few issues getting around and ordering with only English. We learned the basic “thank you” but otherwise we only used English the entire trip. We used translation apps while on the go for anything we need, but had printed papers with the Japanese text of the hotel addresses and any other official booking info we needed in case we grabbed a taxi or needed to ask for directions and the person didn’t know English. Overall, super do-able and I’m sure even easier now years later (esp. after preparing for Olympic games). Most of the time it was purely a transactional interaction (no small talk) so the Japanese person would only say how much the cost was and I could see the total on the register screen or ask how much in English and they’d type it out on a calculator/write the number down and that’d be it. When we were ordering food most places we stopped into were random quaint spots. I’m sure many were more small mom/pop local businesses rather than less big business/chain restaurants (tho we had a fair share of those too). But it was still easy enough to order because the restaurant had either an English menu or the menu was mostly pictures and we used translation apps to help. The staff didn’t know much English at all but pointing at what we wanted on the menu was easiest for all of us, plus again it’s mostly transactional communication and no small talk so it makes it quick and easy. I’d also like to say many Japanese people, especially the elderly were very happy to help even if they didn’t know English. When we were in Tokyo trying to catch a train to Kyoto, we got lost in the train station and were having trouble finding our connection. We merely looked confused and lost for a minute or so before a kind woman approached us asking if we need help. I believe she was a foreigner but spoke both Japanese and English. Then as she was talking with us an elderly Japanese man approached too, the two had no relations to each other. She heard where we were trying to go and the Japanese man spoke with her. She then told us the directions and she had to leave, but the elderly man would also join us and lead the way to make sure we got there all ok. He couldn’t speak any English, but I feel like he could understand some basic English when we spoke to him. He didn’t say much if anything at all during the whole walk, which was rather far and convoluted through the station. But he took us right to the platform we needed and made sure we got on before he left. It was such an endearing experience and made me really appreciate the kindness of Japanese hospitality even to strangers because in America and many other parts of the world that doesn’t exist. Just from what I saw from the comments and noticed myself it seems like the Japanese elderly are more likely to help foreigners, despite there being a language barrier. I feel like this is both a generational and time constraint reason. Older people are just generally at the stage in life this stuff doesn’t bug them, they have the time and patience to help others, and the older generations I feel were also born in a different environment compared to modern day so their values and personalities are different… their willingness to help others… compared to a 21st century teenager or young adult (even in Japan). This is not to say the younger Japanese people don’t know enough English or won’t help (even if no language barrier), everyone in Japan was very helpful and kind~ the fact anyone is making the attempts is nice and very appreciated! (Just seems like an elderly is much more likely to stop on the street to help just from my experiences and observations) I like this video and just continuing to experiment with this idea in their society and others would be fun (as a daughter or sociologists). ** Of course this by no means represents an idea of forcing other countries to know English for English speakers’ inabilities.

This was super insightful! Thank you! I have plans to one day visit, I'm very shy and worry that by not knowing Japanese, people there may find that insulting or obnoxious. I truly love Japan and its culture so I would never want to offend by not being able to communicate very well >

I’m glad that Aki explained that to people who have never been to Japan & can’t speak Japanese, that’s definitely a good idea 😉🥰

Feel good knowing it's not too bad! I bet with basic words + google translate you could get around really well as a tourist at least.

i’m so grateful that my native language is one of the few languages that is universally used and learned. i couldn’t imagine only speaking japanese and going somewhere like italy💀

This honestly gives me a little more confidence to try to visit Japan. Thanks for the video!

at the end of the day, I think that learning the basics in the language that is spoken in the country that you’re visiting is the most respectful thing that you can do, but people will always be willing to help and try to understand one another regardless of language barriers

35 days until I'm in Japan! 😭😭 I'm so excited and nervous as well, I've been trying to learn Japanese but it's honestly kinda hard for me 😪 I'm there for 3 weeks tho so I'm hoping being thrown into it will help as I'm more of a hand on type of learner lol Much love from Arizona 💜💜

That was adorable and heartwarming and I would lose so much money in that multi-story vintage goods building omg shopping heaven!

Menus in Japanese are oddly enough the place where I started getting comfortable with reading/learning lol

literally all of these guys speak better than those anime characters that 'speak' english lol

2018 I was in Japan for 3 weeks and we visited Akihabara and went through all shops we could find because a friend asked us to look for a Levi (DGM) Figure. On the way we asked countless staff people if they had one but while they did not, they did not hesitate to give us a map with an outline of all shops around and circled possible shops that could have it. They were all so nice!!! In the end we could not find it sadly but it was an amazing experience. I was in Japanese class here in Germany for one year at that point but I could only order food or ask where the bathroom is. But my greatest accomplisment was, holding a small conversation in japanese with anelderly lady that was walking her dog . Aaah, my dream is to spent 3 to 6 months in Japanese school in Japan!

This is so helpful I do want to visit Japan eventually and will be learning the language but it's good to know that people will still try to help you even when your language is English

Aki you are the best and most entertaining person. keep making awesome videos.

Speaking the language of the country you live in should be your goal no matter where you are. Even though english is the world language, if you *live* in a foreign country then learn their language. 1. It´s respectful. 2. You are in the perfect learning environment. 3. You´re life will be so much easier. (But also don´t forget to use your native language regularly or else you could end up loosing quite a few words. Especially when really young.)

I've tried really hard to learn the language but learning language is something I've always struggled with. It used to be offered at my university but not anymore, so I ended up learning French and even then I struggled. I plan to visit Japan with my sister who studied Japanese for roughly 5 ish years and my cousin who has for about the same time. So at least then I'll be able to get around and hopefully learn some basic phrases.

Thanks for sharing this video with us. ☺️ I learned Japanese in university so I was able to get by during my TESOL internship in Okayama in 2009, my vacay in Osaka with my sister in 2011, and living and working in JPN again from 2012 (been in Nagoya since 2013). I still think some of the hardest places for me to speak Japanese are the ward office, pension office, and the immigration office. 😅 But, good news… I was able to update my My Number Card at the ward office today all by myself. I had to do it since I got my renewed Residence Card recently. ✌🏽

I just started learning Japanese this week. I do not know that much but it's fun.

I don't think I even know enough Japanese to be at the lowest language skill level. I'm dyslexic, so, I have to teach myself ANY language I learn. I know enough to watch Anime without subtitles (sometimes- if they start talking frantically fast or something complicated I'm lost). I've been teaching myself but I'm really slow. One time, though, I recorded my voice mail greeting entirely in Japanese (I live in America) that said the usual: "hello, sorry I missed your call. Please leave your name, number and reason for your call, and the best time to reach you." I did that for a few reasons, the main ones being: I didn't want people calling me and leaving stupid messages. I thought it might confuse a robocaller, I thought it might confuse people looking for me that I did not want to interact with (long story, but I couldn't block unknown numbers because my doctor called from a restricted number) so I asked a friend who could speak Japanese and they said I used the correct Japanese to say what I wanted. Then I alerted everyone who mattered (including my doctor) that they have the right number if they suddenly hear Japanese.... I left it like that until I could get a better phone with better blocking abilities. My uncle was like: "I know some Japanese, but I could only catch 1 or 2 words, you just rattled it off so fast. People who knew to expect it got a real kick out of that.... After they got over the shock of: "Wait, you know JAPANESE!? Why do you know THAT!?" It felt really good. But it's not easy to learn with dyslexia, as it is I had to even teach myself to read English and that's my native.

こんばんは、アキさん。You really inspired me to learn Japanese and eventually move to Japan. I’ve been learning Japanese for two years and I’ve gotten really far. Thank you so much and I hope you keep making videos

Aki have fun okay cool

Had this exact same conversation with my partner yesterday, its fine to speak English almost everywhere in Japan these days, it can be better to speak Japanese but you can get into trouble due to pronouncing words badly and everyone getting confused. I normally carry a small Japanese child around to help with communication.

Hey Aki! I'm hoping to visit Japan for vacation late next year. Going to take Japanese this coming spring semester. And seeing this video, I am a bit at ease seeing that it is a little easy to get by for getting around.

This is great to see. My partner and I are learning some japanese before we visit later this year, but we aren't going to be fluent by the time we visit. It's great to know if we need to use English we can. Though I still think if you visit a foreign country you should try to learn at least a little bit of the language. At the very least learn "can you please help? can you speak English?" in whatever language necessary lol

I've learnt a small amount when I was younger but now I'm using duolingo. Previously I used mesmerise and I still use hellotalk. I've learnt a lot and can read a bit now but I only talk to two people in Japanese through text. Where I live in England, UK : I've no close friends that I can talk to virtually to practice. I hope when I come to Japan though, I can use what I've learned. xx

I moved to nyc and even thought it's all in English, I still use google maps to learn how to navigate the subway. I seriously don't know how people used to know what line to take to get places before without it! There's 35 different trains for one city, and not all train cars have visible maps noting the stops so it's super helpful for getting somewhere you've never been or traveling out of the city to NJ or Brooklyn.

This is chaotic 😂 I can’t wait to see your new hamster!

OMG thank you for this video, sooo helpful ❤️

The size thing still gets me! 😭 Last time I went to Japan it seemed like every set came with rice, and *every time* they would ask what size rice I want, and *not once* could I remember what it sounded like in Japanese. I went back and replayed the size part and I'm still not 100% sure what they're saying. 😓 But every time, the staff managed to reword it so I could figure it out. I just felt bad I had to keep asking, even if it was a different person every time...

I'm always amazed by the fact, that they are so helpful...:') and they try so hard,.. I keep watching your videos and it feels like you moved to a different planet, honestly. very useful video! :)

It's def that easy getting around with English. Even when there was super struggles, was still able to get points across to and from. I just recently got home from Japan and didn't have any issues getting around, ordering things, getting help, etc. Most places, they def tried to put out a little English. Some places had employees with some really good English, and other places had none what so ever. But pointing at things def helped and a lot of communication can be done just through hand gestures alone.

If I ever came to Tokyo, I'd spare a full day(and a considerable cut of my budget) to hunt down thrift stores like that, but only for old Magic cards and boosters from older sets like Shadowmoor and Eventide that are pretty much impossible to find from Finland..

I think I met many who didn’t speak it so it’s nice to know how easily you got by. I liked how you tried regardless and spoke clearly with hand gestures, I’ll have to give it a better go next time. The anxiety is real.

I really love this video. Like I’m trying to learn Japanese but this makes me feel little better as there are some places that can speak English

This is actually really helpful and reassuring, thank you!

Very informative to see the true limitations. Thank you.

Love your videos takes me back to the time i spend in Sesebo lived in Japan for 3 years back in 2002 - 2005 never had any issues

That's actually a pretty killer deal for those VHS Blastoise and Venasaur promo decks. Super jelly.

This is really neat!

Now I’m gonna have to eat some ice cream. Also Pokémon stuff!!!!!! Can’t wait for that content! As someone who is trying to learn and would love to visit in the future this is reassuring. Thank you so much for making this video!

I spent 2 weeks in Tokyo and no one spoke English. It was to the point where they couldn’t even introduce themselves in English like: “my name is, I’m 22 years old, I’m from the Netherlands” etc

I am currently living in Hikone Shiga. You really can feel the difference going from Hikone to Kyoto, especially in restaurants. A lot more English speakers in major cities.

So TRUE & wise Aki! I think If you're going to live In ANY country (America Included) it's very beneficial to learn the language so you can feel Impowered and apart of the country.

I think the hardest part for me was the using the phone in the hotel rooms at the cheaper hotels. The higher end ones would have someone that knows more English :) Overall it's pretty fun pointing.

Yea, I totally agree. If you want to actually move to another country or want to stay there longer, you should always try to learn at least some of the language (no matter if it’s Japan, or any other country). And for just a vacation, you will probably be fine. I mean it is always helpful to know some basics but it’s definitely doable without any knowledge at all. You can always youse bodylanguage and nowadays if you really don’t know what to do you have always the option to use a translator on your phone (i mean some actual good one, not something like Google translate) even if the translation might not be that good, it will probably still help a lot.

On my way home from Japan now, managed to survive heading up to Hakodate and back to Tokyo. My Japanese skills are minimal but pointing, bowing and arigatou really helped

This was a great video. I am planning my trip in end of October, and I was super nervous about only knowing simple phrases and level 1 coversation, but after watching this video, it put me a bit more at ease.

Great vid :DD good luck with the hamster

I try to like all your videos so you keep making content 😊 I just love how honest your videos feel! Thanks for making me happy 🥰

5:44 Aki is looking like the girl from perfect blue hear

I was in tokyo in the summer of 2022, and everyone was very polite to me even if they didnt speak english they wanted to help.

i know very few japanese words i do my best to use as much japanese as i can when visiting ive never had a problem everytime we have been to japan we have had someone generallly an elder come ask us where we are from and if we needed and dierctions or help once a elderly man chatted to us and we found out his son lives in Australia where we are from and he walked us 25mins through the underground windy train station corradoors to show us the right way to get to our airport bus the hospilality and the kindness of the locals is what we love about Japan the most

I live how this started.. classic understanding but not speaking vibe that I see a lot.. two people speaking 2 different languages yet understanding each other.. kinda fun 🤩

i’m super anxious about my japanese because i have a trip coming up to Japan and Korea. my Korean is good enough but Japanese… eh. i think i’ll be fine with the basics but it’s helpful seeing that a lot of people will still try to help even if you don’t fully understand each other

I learned Japanese since like before Christmas 2022 and I can understand basic stuff so i could survive in Japan (⁠*⁠´⁠ω⁠｀⁠*⁠) But I'm excited to watch this!!!

i missed your videos aki, i´m happy that you uploaded today

8:30 I just laughed so hard it came out as a honk! 🤣☠️

That was absoluely intesting! As a visitor I wouldn´t feel anxious in bigger cities anymore.

i lived in japan for 6 years not knowing pretty much any japanese, (i will say i tried to learn the language but having 2 kdis kinda halted that haha) Google translate has helped me order things from restaurants and even Saiyu (walmart). google maps will also take you anywhere you want to go gives you the platform and the train colors.

Thankyou! This helps relieve some of my anxiety about a future trip to Japan🎉

it helps that aki has a nice quiet demeanor

Cool experiment! I've only been in Japan for 3 weeks for school but I'd been studying Japanese for a year before I came here. I am in one of the city areas but there is a lot less English here than Tokyo. From the airport to the city hall and the bank, I had to work through the important stuff only in Japanese so that was quite the challenge...

It’s crazy how many videos I’ve seen of people who interview foreigners in Japan and, a lot of them live there for a few months with little to none Japanese knowledge, yet complain about it being hard living there or not being able to get a job.

Language barrier is the only reason I don't like to travel (and english is my second language). I did visit France twice because I studied it but I was bad at it and hardly remember anything now. I did also visit northern Italy, Monaco and Germany on those trips.

I went to Tokyo Japan July 2018 and 90% of people in stores or cafe type restaurants had translation devices or an app on them. Which was so helpful!! Or we would point at what we needed. If we ran into exchange students they would automatically speak English to us.

I love this video so much! You explained everything so well and gave us a nice trip. Thank you so much! 💖🙌

Before the pandemic, I spent two weeks (very short trip) in Japan. We spent some days in Tokyo, some in Kyoto, so both very touristy. We only met a handful of people who could speak English fluently, but that wasn't an issue regardless, as people were very good and patient at picking up on what we were trying to get across with our body language and the few words and phrases of Japanese we had hammered into our brains prior to our trip just in case. For asking for rough direction, ordering food and communicating with store clerks and such it was absolutely no issue. The only time we failed at communicating was when my husband's laptop was having an issue and the person in the repair shop had no chance of learning what we needed and we had no way of understanding just how much he understood about our problem and why he wouldn't be able to help us. So we ended the interaction with apologetic awkward smiles and made do with the problem somehow. So yeah, to just move around as a tourist, as long as you have a few phrases down and maybe a good app for support, you won't have any bigger issues. It's only when something more complicated or specific comes up, that you might run into some difficulty here and there.

The flip-flop of English to Japanese had me laughing so hard. My second language (or at least, the one I'm currently learning) is Spanish. I was fairly fluent by the time I decided to join a school in Guatemala, but was super self-conscious of how bad my grammar was. I'd do my best in English, but would find myself switching over to Spanish in the middle of talking. Apparently, my accent is really minor and I was better at communicating than I thought, because so many employees would dead-eye stare me with the most "really, bruh?" expression on their face. They thought I was brought up by Spanish parents (as in Castilian/European) in an English-speaking country and was just fucking with them. A concussion knocked most of the Spanish out of my head, but I'm trying to relearn it!

Thank you Aki, this video made me more confident to go to Japan. I dont know any Japan and have a really hard time trying to speak it unlike my boyfriend and I was very nervous about about going to Japan not knowing any Japanese but this makes me feel better about going.

when you were asking where the icecream was located, I like how the Filipino accent became more prominent hehe

I wish I had time and money to visit for at least a week. Other thing is that I have pronunciation problem with letters k/g so even though I have studied little bit Japanese as a hobby I'm not sure they would understand me.

Very helpful, thank you Aki! ❤️🌸 I hope one day I will visit for vacation, but I'm worried if going around or at restaurants would be difficult with language barrier.

So...story time: I was in a study abroad program in Beijing, and as a part of the classwork we couldn't speak any English...ever. The only exception was phone calls back to family and friends back home. It was for full immersion, and we learned FAST! I had the advantage of having a few years of Chinese under my belt, but my previous teachers and friends who taught me weren't from the area but from central and southern China so my accent was, as everyone said, "weird." Not American, or English, or Foreigner, but "weird." Anyway. For ordering food, I only knew the Hunanese and Hainanese foods (which aren't exactly regular in Beijing) so I resorted to a lot of "this" and "that" with pointing, especially with louder restaurants, so that's pretty universal. There's a fun story in there where I could understand Hunanese while others couldn't, and I had to translate from rural Hunanese to Beijinger and back again, but I digress. Anyways, at the end of the program (about 3 months), we were allowed to speak English again. We finally got to stretch our "English Legs" again. It kind of felt weird. Then I looked at my classmates, teachers, and Chinese friends. They all were looking at me, and each other, really weird. A few of us had pretty distinct regional dialects in English that we had never noticed only speaking Chinese, and everyone came to a screeching halt, asking where we were from. We then decided to walk around the campus the last three days only speaking English as a challenge, and forcing our Chinese roommates to translate as a challenge. It was a blast. A few times locals (who had come to know us as regular residents and customers, and were familiar with the program), joined in on the trick and had some fun, while others were totally shocked when we switched back and forth between the two languages like it was nothing.

hey aki!! I hope you've been doing well

A Hāfu RU-vidr who goes by the handle of Louis San has already tried the challenge of speaking English only in stores and restaurants around Tokyo. It turned out fine in one of his videos: customer service was still possible in spite of the difficulty it implied for Japanese staff

I love how everyone you came into contact with tried . You can clearly see the effort was there . 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 I don’t speak Japanese but I can understand some words 😂

Amazing video akidearest,fantastic job.

I didn't have any problems without Japanese when I visited. I used Google translate camera function on menu's which works pretty well, and Google for directions of course. I learned some basic sentences though, like where is the bathroom and can I pay. In cities definitely not hard to get around:) If I would move there I would learn Japanese. But that does for every country, if you move there (semi) permanently you should try to learn as much as you can of the language imo.

I live in Iowa and I was shook when he said Iowa university because now I want to meet that man since I’ve always wanted to go to japan since I was little