Surviving ETCJP 01 - Language

Some people may tell you otherwise, but it can be very hard to get around Japan only using English. Even a handful of Japanese can be very helpful for finding where you're going, getting food, asking for help, etc. I can't teach you Japanese (I barely know much myself), but I can introduce you to a few things that have come to my aid.

Japanese consists of three alphabets: hiragana for native words, katakana for foreign/borrow words and kanji, a complex yet meaningful series of thousands of characters borrowed and adapted from Chinese. Though there are some signs that will use Roman characters (romanji) to spell out things phonetically, in order to read most things in Japan, you need to have some grasp of these characters. Here is an online resource with charts that can explain things in more detail:

http://www.japanesein20weeks.com/basics-hiragana.shtml

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Even Japanese people sometimes have difficulty with their own complex language and you'll notice that a lot of them often carry an electronic pocket dictionary. These dictionaries can run anywhere from 50 to 1500 dollars based on the sophistication of the software. Instead of buying one of these stand alone dictionaries, a lot of the previous ETCJP students bought a specific piece of dictionary software for the Nintendo DS:

DS Writable Kanji Dictionary is very useful because you can find the meaning of characters simply by writing them into your DS. Useful!

I found the software for sale online here, but I paid half that when I bought it in Japan: (Can you hold off?) http://www.amazon.com/Kanji-Dictionary-Sonomama-Rakubiki-Jiten/dp/B000O2S9VQ/ref=pd_sim_b_68

A free game created by Michael Herring, one of my fellow ETCJP pioneers, can help you drill kanji and Japanese words in a fun way!: Kanji Invaders

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Knowledge of basic Japanese grammar can help you decoded bits and pieces of what is being said to you. A standard Japanese sentence generally starts with the Subject followed by the Predicate and then ending with the Verb, but even that can change. All in all, the Japanese make sense of it using things called Particles. Wa, Ga, Wo, Ni, He, Ka, Yo, etc. These single character place markers establish everything from what it is you're talking about to whether you're asking a question or not. I have yet to find a good web resources for Japanese grammar, but I can recommend the following books:

Japanese - The Spoken Language

Japanese in MangaLand 2

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Finally, a handful of commonly-used, idiomatic expressions can be very useful. "Toire wa doko desu ka" or "Where is the bathroom?", could you imagine getting by without that? I found a couple sites here that have a few, but honestly you can find resources like this anywhere. Be prepared!

Conversational Japanese Survival Phrases

Japanese Phrases for Travelers

- Bennosuke