Verbal Communication
I made the mistake of coming to Japan and learning Japanese when I landed. Unfortunately, you must learn the ancient symbols first and like a dummy, I packed my “how to do business in Japan” book and left my conversational Japanese book at home. So everyday, I have to say whether I love the food (”Oishi desu) I am given or mumble something to try and explain that it is a bit unusual and I don’t really want extra helpings the next day delivered by well-meaning neighbours 
can’t imagine how do you speak with all the folks there… I’ve heard Japanese and hardly could understand when one word is ending and new is started
Andy, how many folks actually could speak English there?
Comment by SensoVision — February 20, 2006 at 5:46 am
I think most young people and business employees speak a little English but the older folks don’t seem to know a word.
There is quite a bit of English to be seen in adverts, slogans and signs.
If you learn the basics of how to pronounce the sylables it’s easy to detect the words as long as they are said slowly. But I can understand your problem onc e the words are spoken quickly with a dialect and inflextion added. Just like other languages.
Comment by blogmaster — February 23, 2006 at 4:34 am
hope you get used to Japanese soon and could use it fluently
Comment by SensoVision — March 12, 2006 at 1:05 pm