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Comment by jleyank | Hacker News Reader

I would be curious how non-Japanese are coping with this situation. While the workplace might be in English, I would think the rest of the worker's world is in Japanese... Do they have a non-Japanese ghetto where people can find housing and shopping? Are they offering Conversational Japanese courses to the foreign workers, or even providing them with help getting settled and a guide?

We visited Japan in the mid-00's and outside of Kyoto found a real shortage of latin-lettered signage. Our train and hotels were set up by a friend so we didn't have to deal with that and fortunately there were readable letters with the train and an appreciation of my business cards when checking in. Otherwise, there was a lot of pointing and Indian food involved. Have things changed since then?

Edit: When we were there our GSM phones did not work in Japan - we needed to have a rental. Has the spread of iPhones meant that non-native phones can work in Japan?

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There are plenty of people who live in Tokyo who speak ~no Japanese, despite being here for 20+ years. Not recommended from a social sanity perspective, but there are enough foreigners to where you can just exist in the non-JP bubble for ~ever. Especially in the fancier parts of town.

And even absent that you can just figure out and manage. It's not the Netherlands but you can be functionally illiterate and exist here

There are plenty of Japanese classes in Japan. There are formal language schools, things offered by the city, and you can also just pay for private lessons. But if you're coming for work you're probably busy with work

Having said all that... loads of companies do the whole "English is the official language" thing here but are still properly segmented into "can speak Japanese" and "cannot speak Japanese" cliques. It's not the end of the world but I would say the workplace is where the questions are the biggest for me

We went with armed with Google Maps, Google Translate, and a cellular router you rent at the airport (or just use Google Fi's free international data). Never had an issue. That was several trips from 2014 ish onwards.

Every train route is on Google Maps, restaurant menus are easy to scan with Translate, there are English signs everywhere, many touristy places speak English anyway, the locals are super friendly and helpful, etc.

It's a major international destination, not some backwater island...

If you decide to move to another country you might as well decide to learn the basics of the language - mind you, knowing how to count/read basic signs/ask for food gets you a long way. You can learn this in weeks/months almost anywhere. On the other hand, it would take much longer to get to the level of fluency required to communicate successfully in the workplace. I see this article in this way, English at work and some other language outside, which is not uncommon elsewhere in the world.

> non-Japanese ghetto...

Yes, they do. It's called Shibuya / Shinjuku, lol I'd say if you have a partner who's Japanese, and you're lazy af, you don't need to learn the language. Most foreigners I've met in Tokyo stick to their groups as well and usually end up complaining about Japan and the bureaucracy (mostly because they can't read or write to save their lives).

> Have things changed since then?

I think the biggest change is the Japanese opting to use more ひらがな（hiragana）/ カタカナ (katakana) in the news, signs, and every day messages (subtitles / ふりがな [furigana]). This is highly welcomed in my opinion. I think it's the right way to teach all people how to read.

I must say though, companies like HENNGE is quite special, and I root for more companies that try to welcome changes. Although there are only a handful of foreigners in my current employment (including myself), we try to slowly include English in our stand-ups / other small-informal meetings.

> We visited Japan in the mid-00's and outside of Kyoto found a real shortage of latin-lettered signage.

I heard the same from my in-laws around then, but we've been a bunch of times over the last decade, most recently immediately post-quarantine-- Hiroshima, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto and Tokyo.

I'd attest that across these cities, they really stepped up signage in preparation for visitors to the Olympics. I barely had to think to translate anything on the last trip; everyone had English menus, QR codes to English versions of such, and English signs everywhere tourists were expected (arcades, stores, restaurants).

We had kids in tow so weren't crawling locals bars, love hotels or pachinko parlors. Those may still be tricky to navigate.

I know a bit of Chinese so I was surprised how handy it was in Japan when there was no English signage.

Obviously it didn't convey the whole message, but sometimes just enough to understand what it meant.

I won't say it's trivial but smartphones, GPS, Google Translate, etc. have made things much easier since I first traveled to Japan maybe 15 years ago. Yes, iPhones work. And, while things are harder when you get more rural, traveling is pretty straightforward at least between and in cities.

I believe that at least in large cities, in addition to Japanese information signs, English, Chinese, and Korean are written side by side.

Non-native iPhones could be used with a SIM-card swap at the airport. Not sure if roaming or eSIMs are easily available.

Just FYI to those reading and planning a trip: you can SIM swap many makes and models of phones but you need to check if they support the right bands. You're safe with iPhones. Many NA pixels won't work but my NA Pixel 6a does. You just have to do some reading.

Many NA phones might not work if they're not "unlocked", and can only use SIM cards from the carrier. Many prepaid phones are like this too, and can only be used with that prepaid plan.

Verizon phones should work fine though, though the CDMA part won't work abroad obviously, but the other bands it uses should be enough. Verizon phones are all unlocked. Others you might need to get unlocked by the carrier before you go.

Also, the very latest iPhones don't use SIM cards, but rather eSIMs. I'm not sure if that'll work with a tourist-oriented phone service (I doubt it).

There are some very affordable travel eSIMs available for Japan.

To all of your questions: Yes, in general.

hasn't changed

yes gov has free language lessons avail to foreign residents

I completely disagree. Major cities all have English signage now, especially for transportation.

I would say 95-99% of transportation signage have English translations. There's still the remaining few percent where it's entirely in Japanese (source: visited the Kansai region a few months ago). They're usually signs on the ground on whether a line is express or non-express.

I ended up on a random bus in Sapporo once and it was the only public transportation without English signage or announcements in multiple trips to Japan using multiple public transportation systems.

a quick view on YouTube of a current travel video in 札幌 Sapporo, Hokkaido region, showed the transit machine, and one of the choices was English, also Simplified Chinese. The signage at the entrance to the station had a line of English name on it.

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