It’s foolish to try to live in a country without speaking the official language, right? But Japan, with English scrawled beneath most signs, English announcements on trains and in department stores, and “English menus” at restaurants, tricks you into believing you can live here without speaking Japanese.
In fact, I have some expat friends who have lived in this country for an upwards of fifteen years who don’t speak Japanese. Instead, they have a repertoire of phrases memorized for most occasions.
But when it comes to living, really living in Japan, memorized phrases just aren’t going to cut it. Especially when it comes to cooking.
I often run errands when we visit our in-laws out in Ibaraki. It’s part of the whole “being a good daughter-in-law” thing, along with weekly phone calls and biweekly text messages to okaasan. Simply put, okassan is the kind of person who writes out the kanji for oishii. Every time she sends me to the store for shopping, there are at least two or three unknown kanji on her list.
I’ve gotten really good at tracking down a sales associate and asking for help. Embarrassing, yes, but really, you can’t cook in Japan if you don’t know your kanji.
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Okay so what do I do I was told I needed to learn Hiragana and katakana first then Kanji but it seems from Grace that Kanji is better to learn
On a somewhat unrelated note, this may be the most comprehensive guide to learning to read Japanese food labels that has ever been written in English (or any other language…)
http://www.survivingnjapan.com/2012/04/ultimate-guide-to-reading-food-labels.html
So true! I remember having a very salty cup of tea my first week in Japan after confusing the kanji for salt and sugar!!
Spent 4 minutes thinking if what I got was oil for sure. Got back home, openned the bottle and… boy, was I relieved! 😀
I ask the associates too. but I only use 5% of the food store. rest, I dont even know what those are.
Hah love the little cartoons in your posts. Make sure you remember the 辛 kanji, if you dont like spicy 😛
Haha, thanks. That’s one of the first ones I learned 🙂