Useful Japanese Phrases for Tourists

so I'm gonna be going to Japan in a week with a bunch of people for like this work thing and then I thought well I should teach them some useful phrases in Japanese but then I thought oh I'll make a video so here is usually the first useful phrase is sumimasen sumimasen and it means pardon me or excuse me and in fact sometimes it's even used for thank you so like in America if you spill something and then somebody hands you a towel you might say thank you but in Japan you would say oh excuse me or pardon me and the reason is Japan is a culture of obligation has this culture of obligation and so if you actually thank somebody for something then you are now obligated to do something of equal or commensurate value in return and it gets really complicated and all this other stuff so people generally try to avoid it by just saying sumimasen but if somebody like does you a real solid or something and you just really want to thank them then you could say arigato arigato or domo arigato for more emphasis or if it's for something in particular in the past domo arigato gozaimashita or more colloquially you could just say domo but I mean you're a foreigner so you could just say Adi Gothel and they'll basically get the idea a very useful pattern is something like sumimasen AQ ah doko desuka sumimasen aqui wah doko desu ka' which means where's the train station Ikki being the train station and I use train station because train stations are kind of the center of activity in a lot of Japanese cities and so if you can find the train station you can find pretty much everything else that's important that you need to find in that area another one would be sumimasen coal bong well doko desu ka' coal bunk is a police box or place basically we're police officers kind of hang out and help out with whatever Civic needs come up and so if you get into trouble you can say sumimasen cool bangla double disco or another one key assuming I said Toyota Google disco toilet being the word for toilet or comes from the word toilet and there's also a more polite form which is a day I die which means hand washing area or restroom but you're more likely to remember toilet because it sounds like toilet then you are to remember what day I died which is the hand another useful phrase sumimasen quote it you could have this Scot sue me on set put it you could have this Cup as in excuse me how much is this thing to be honest you could probably say this in English and they'll figure it out or they'll know the phrase but I don't know it's kind of cool to say stuff in Japanese every once in a while now there is a chance that if you say that in Japanese they'll quote you a price in Japanese but at that point you can just go like and then they'll figure out oh you just know that phrase but you don't know the numbers and then they'll just write it down on a piece of paper or calculate or something and they show you so anyways sue me what's it put it you could have this go Oh Japan is very much a cash based society so there are places that are gonna accept credit cards like any of the larger department stores or restaurants or hotels but for the most part cash is always preferred and it's a very safe country as well so you can feel comfortable carrying around a larger amount of cash than you would normally at home and although it is very safe there are some pervy dudes so like it's very very rare but if it happens then just like call them out on it like if somebody grabs your butt on the train or something just call them out grab their hand is they like whose hand is this or like who touched my butt and it'll do two things one it'll call attention to the person who did it and to hopefully embarrass them enough because they weren't expecting somebody to actually react to it that it'll help prevent that sort of thing from happening in the future although again super rare so I don't expect anybody to actually run into that suppose you're in a situation where you really need to talk to somebody in English then you would say Sui mice in able while kody mustika sumimasen able walk out he must Scott and you're probably gonna get a reaction like this or maybe something like this and the reason it is Japanese people really like to know what to do at all times like there's an appropriate reaction or an appropriate behavior for pretty much every given situation and the appropriate behavior or somebody asking you something in English is to respond to them in English but most Japanese people don't speak English that well I mean like how many languages do you speak I don't speak Spanish and I'm living in California like my whole life and yet I hear it all the time it would be super useful but I just don't so it's kind of embarrassing but Japan kind of takes that to the net level and so like there's a general fear of speaking in public places this is kind of that multiplied times 10 so don't be discouraged if like the first few times P you say sumimasen able wakati must Scott if people just run away like the first hundred times or so but eventually you'll find somebody who does especially if you go to like a department store or train station or like a police box or something where they're like more official people then usually they'll either know somebody who speaks English or speak English themselves so useful phrase sumimasen eagle while kody muscat on a related note if you happen to be asian and you're traveling in japan there's a chance that people are gonna think you're japanese cuz you look Japanese and so if that happens this is a very useful phrase I do not speak Japanese I mean there is actually a Japanese phrase for that but if you really want to convey that you don't speak Japanese it's best to not say it in Japanese if you're curious the phrase is new Hangul Hana shima-san I do not speak German or new home will walk out he mustn't cut he must say is it I don't understand Japanese but then you get this confusing thing where like oh you'll look agent and you said something in Japanese so why don't you understand the rest of what I'm saying which has actually happened to people that I've known so better off just say I don't speak Japanese and then they'll kind of get the hint even if they don't understand what you're saying if you're about to eat a meal a polite thing to say before the meal starts is itadakimasu itadakimasu which means I'm about to eat and so it's a very you know simple phrase but it kind of is an engrained in part of the Japanese culture to say that at the beginning of every meal as a way to show thanks for the meal itself and also for the person who made the effort to make the meal and then at the end of the meal you might say which sauce on my dish stop which little Samedi stuff or good sasame which just means it was a feast and you would say that regardless of what the meal was but it's kind of again a way to show appreciation for the meal itself and also for the person who prepared the meal for you and actually on a related note and if you're at a restaurant especially if like it a sushi place or something like that don't ask for like extra ginger or extra wasabi because it's kind of like saying I'm going to a steaks job and saying like ask me for ketchup to pour on the state it's generally considered like kind of crude and boorish because you're there to appreciate the taste of the fish and the rice and adding more and more stuff to it kind of indicates that you didn't like the fish or the rights or the other stuff and on a similar note if you're at a restaurant and you get one of these like you know you break it apart and then you might clean it a little bit but then don't like spend an excessive amount of time cleaning it because every time you do this you're kind of saying like yeah your chopsticks are really really crappy chopsticks and I gotta wipe off all the splinters of here before I even try to eat this so I mean you know it's okay to like split in like you know do a quick wipe off or whatever but like just try to keep it to a minimum and then you know you talk like you mas mom what so some of this stuff on a related note don't eat or drink while you're walking and by that I mean like it's common in America to like go to the coffee shop and grab a coffee and then drink it while you're walking to work in Japan don't do that and the reason is it's a lot more crowded in Japan and so people bump into each other pretty frequently and so there's a greater chance of you spilling your food or drink on other people and even if you don't you're making other people accommodate you for the fact that you're you know got a food or drink in your hand while you're walking so generally just don't eat or drink unless you're specifically at a festival where that's the sort of thing that people are doing and so for this basically just look and see what other people are doing if you're about to meet somebody for the first time a nice thing to say is how'd you manage that Hajime must day and it's just a polite way of saying it's the first time that we're meeting which is kind of nice and then if you want to get a little fancier you could also say dozle your dose good dozle you're not good which means I hope that we will treat each other actually I don't even know what it means I should look that up hold on so I looked up those oh you looks good and it means please treat me favorably or please be kind to me but essentially it just means like hey yeah I hope this goes well here's how Japanese people say yes hi here's how they say no actually they don't generally say no there is the word for it which is yet but you like almost never hear it in fact in general most of the time they'll just kind of equivocate or they'll hem and haw like mmm total as in like oh there's a little problem with that dot or mmm so this net as in like yeah and so the the idea is like it's kind of hard to say no in Japan because it's considered rude to refuse somebody so instead what they'll do is they'll kind of like not say anything for a while and then hope that you get the hint so you know be aware of that and one last general tip don't tip in Japan it's just not part of the culture it's considered kind of weird to like give people money in addition to what they're already paid for for their jobs so yeah just don't tip and that's pretty much it this has been a useful jab dance crazy or tortoise yeah so I hope you enjoyed it have fun in Japan so if you're about to meet somebody then a nice thing to say before that if you're about to meet somebody for the first time a nice thing to say is oh shoot have forgotten what what I was about to record my next thing okay so if you're at a restaurant or about to start a meal but you want to be in the video Dyson

Channel: Mach Kobayashi

Views: 107,822

Rating: 4.9669628 out of 5

Keywords: Japanese, Japan, Tourism

Id: FkmryQQWLwU

Length: 10min 34sec (634 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 25 2018