do I need to learn Japanese in this case...

[chrishopes]

Hello Friends..

Visiting Japan without having no knowledge about Japanese language might create some problems....This is because a very few guys are there who know the English language....So i will suggest you guys to take a bit knowledge about Japanese language before leaving there.....

Chris Hopes.

[Polar]

The very least you can do is learn some basic words and phrases. Tokyo is quite accessible with zero Japanese I was surprised but if you think it's bilingual think again

However the whole time I was there English was spoken to me a grand total of three times, all the rest was Japanese.

Am I fluent ? Heck no not even close, but I knew hello, goodbye, excuse me, I'm sorry, numbers 1-10 and some other stuff which got me respectful nods and bows.

Again it's the very least you could do being a guest in another country.

[tokusatsufan]

Originally Posted by MMM

I ran into a foreigner in Tokyo earlier this year. He was trying to get to the American embassy. He was amazed that the train station staff did not speak English and had spent (according to him) 90 minutes asking strangers "Where is the American Embassy". He was only a couple blocks away, but since he didn't have a dictionary and hadn't looked up the word "taishikan" (embassy) he might as well have been on a life raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I thought that was a ridiculous,anime creation from people that had never met white people. Those people give the rest of us a bad name.