For the intermediate Japanese learner visiting Japan there is a problem: Japanese people are too good at English. They’ll often begin an interaction in English or immediately switch to English if your Japanese isn’t perfect. If you know the natural way to continue the conversation in Japanese, they’ll probably appreciate your effort. In many cases, they’ll also switch back to Japanese. With practice, you can have longer, more meaningful interactions while traveling in Japan.

Let’s walk through a simple example:

You walk up to the empty register, carrying your tray with a curry roll and a melonpan, calling out “こんにちは”.

As the cashier walks up you say “この二ふたつください”.

Since you’re a foreigner and your pronunciation wasn’t the best, the cashier responds “For here or to go?”1 while wrapping your individual rolls.

You respond “持もち帰かえりで”, saying that you want them to go.

The cashier, slightly surprised, continues “Do you need a bag?”2 asking if you want an extra bag to carry the two already wrapped rolls.

You respond “袋ふくろは大丈夫だいじょうぶです”, confirming that you don’t need a bag.

The cashier continues, “七百二十円ななひゃくにじゅうえんです” saying that the total is ¥720.

You say “一千円いっせんえんで” handing them a ¥1000 bill.

They say “はい”, take the money, count out the change and then say “二百八十円にひゃくはちじゅうえんのお釣つりです。 レシートは要いりますか”.

You respond “大丈夫だいじょうぶ、 ありがとうございました”, take your individually wrapped rolls and leave as they echo “ありがとうございます”.

The cashier switched to Japanese by the end; often just being a bit stubborn is a enough to achieve this. Sometimes it ends up being easier: staff in small towns are less accustomed to tourists and more likely to just muddle through the whole interaction with you in Japanese. At other times it’s near hopeless: most often at hotels, but also in more touristy locations/situations, your conversation partner might not switch to Japanese no matter what you do. It’s still worth trying, but often giving in and finishing the conversation in English leads to a more pleasant interaction.

Here are some things that have helped me have longer, better interactions in Japanese:

  • Listen to the people ahead of you in line: usually they’re going through exactly the interaction you’re about to have. This is also good listening practice.
  • Practice upcoming interactions using LLMs: if there’s a harder conversation you anticipate having, you can practice with Claude before having it. After losing my toiletry bag I practiced with Claude before heading to the sento where I thought I lost it.
  • Sometimes less is more: for example, when ordering from a list of variants it’s more natural to just say “二番にばんお願ねがいします” to specify the second option. You won’t impress anyone by demonstrating your vocabulary unnecessarily.
  • Know your counters: at a museum you ask for 大人おとな二枚にまい tickets, at a food stall you ask for 一本いっぽん skewers, at a restaurant you’re seated as 二人ふたり people. Often this is your first interaction; nailing it can help set you up for success (and using them wrong can signal: I’m a beginner, switch to English). When in doubt, つ likely gets the point across well enough.
  • Know filler words: used appropriately えっと, あの, まあ, etc. can help you stall for time to formulate your response.
  • For longer interactions, aizuchi (相槌あいづち) is important: Using はい, なるほど, そうですね, etc. appropriately reassures your conversation partner that you’re following along. Make sure you’re actually following along though. If you aren’t, tell them you don’t by saying 分わかりません、 もう一度いちどお願ねがいします.

Checking out at a bakery, ordering at a restaurant, or asking where to find 着火剤ちゃっかざい in a Daiso are all quite short/simple conversations to have. But I’ve found that having simple/transactional conversations builds the confidence to tackle the harder, more open ended conversations.

On my recent trip to Japan, when sitting down to sip some free tea at 一石栃立場茶屋いちこくとちたてばちゃや, a tea shop on the Nakasendo between Magome and Tsumago the owner asked me curiously: “Where are you from?”, “How long are you visiting Japan?”, and so on. I stubbornly responded in Japanese; he eventually started asking me questions in Japanese. After a while he asked “Why do you like visiting Japan?” and my Japanese vocabulary failed me. I responded in English, but by then the conversation had gone on long enough that it was effortless to shift back into Japanese afterwards. The conversation with the owner was memorable not because I managed to speak a lot of Japanese, but because we actually connected, comfortably mixing languages as needed.

  1. It’s useful to know how the conversation would go if the whole interaction was in Japanese. In Japanese this might be 店内てんないでお召めし上あがりですか. ↩

  2. In Japanese this might be 袋ふくろはご利用りようですか. ↩