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Originally Posted by Dist
Going to borrow this topic to ask something that has been bothering me .. Me and my friend are going to visit Japan next year. Neither of us can speak or read japanese .. will this be a problem ? Mainly talking about traveling around and when buying stuff from shops ( also we want to visit Comiket ).
We are looking to take some basic classes though for Japanese but we might not even get to one so there might not be enough time to learn even just katakanas and hiraganas .. let alone kanji.
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You'll be fine, especially in big cities - most of the signs are bi-lingual and almost everyone understands a lot of English. It's a little tougher in smaller towns, but don't forget - most Japanese kids take more years of English classes than American kids do. There'll almost always be someone who can speak a little English and in train stations almost all the signs are in English as well as Japanese, even smaller ones.
I would recommend checking out a site like Japanesepod101 - they have what they call "Survival Phrases" lessons that will serve very well for a tourist in Japan.