I’m heading to Japan for 7 weeks in April to improve my Japanese while working remotely. After several previous trips, I’ve noticed a common challenge: even when trying to speak Japanese, conversations often default to English once people recognize I’m struggling.
To overcome this, I created a simple solution – a badge on a lanyard with:
The Japanese beginner symbol
“日本語を勉強中” (I’m studying Japanese)
“ゆっくり話してください” (Please speak slowly)
My first name with “僕は” (I am) before it
The beginner symbol (famously used by new drivers in Japan) signals that I might need extra patience and struggle in challenging situations. I deliberately kept it simple – no demanding phrases like “please use simpler terms,” as the symbol itself should convey this already. But from my experience, it’s easy for people to forget that we need more time to process, so I kept the hint to speak slowly.
My name is on the badge because Japanese conversations often reference the person by name (like “[Name]-san”) rather than using generic terms like “you.” This should make interactions more comfortable. I chose my first name (in both romaji and katakana) since it’s easier to pronounce than my last name.
I chose a lanyard over t-shirts or stickers (which I had considered first) for practicality – it works with any outfit and in any weather. When I need to speak Japanese, I can simply say “すみません、ここを見てください” (Excuse me, please look here) while pointing to my badge. It’s also easy to hide it when I’m not in the mood to talk.
What do you think? Any other tips for maximizing Japanese practice during my trip? My goal is to use Japanese as much as possible and look up anything I don’t understand later.
I’m going for a week in April and for around two months in the summer and I’ll try to make something similar, I don’t exactly have too much feedback as I’ve never been there and don’t know what I should be recommending off of experience, I think it’s great.
That might work for others, but I couldn’t tell a lie like that to strangers. Feels wrong. What if I end up becoming their friend? Not a good start of a friendship.
Yeah this is mostly useful for one-time interactions where you don’t want to go through a lengthy negotiation about what language to speak. If you’re trying to get to know someone better it’s probably preferable to just ask to speak in Japanese.
If someone got sufficiently exasperated by people switching to their native language such that they pretended not to know it with me when we were basically strangers I would find that a really amusing anecdote and them to be seemingly an interesting person tbh.
Yeah I feel similarly, I wouldn’t find this an embarrassing secret to confess down the line, but also in general if you’re getting to know somebody well you should probably manage to find common ground without having to use tricks.
The places where I play dumb and pretend not to understand English is for instance in shops in touristy places where the salespeople tend to immediately switch to English as soon as they know that you’re not a native. It’s quicker than saying “so you see, I know that you’re probably a minimum wage employee and are trying to get through this encounter as quickly and efficiently as possible, but you’ll be pleased to know that I’m on a 38 day Duolingo streak and I feel like using you for conversation practice.”
Some years ago while sitting at the counter of a small watering hole near my office after a long day at work I just did not feel like being a target for English practice to the guy next to me so I told him (in Japanese) that I did not speak English. He asked what language I did speak and I told him German (which I do not speak aside from what small bits I remember from 1 semester of German 30 years ago). Just my luck, the guy had worked in Germany for 10 years and was fluent in German.
That led to me having to explain myself, which he found humourous. That led to him always greeting me in German and some joking about him needing to teach me German whenever we met after that.
I would be aware of where you wear it and and how you use it. Many people may not want to feel obligated to adding “Japanese teacher/language exchange partner” to their already busy work load. The person working at the counter is focused on doing their job and getting to everyone in the queue as efficiently as possible. If switching to English or whipping out a phrase/picture guide to point at is the best way to do that, that is what they are going to want to do.
I have been on the opposite end of this, where someone wants to practice their English but I am already behind and I do not want (cannot afford to) to spend 10 minutes figuring things out when it could be done in 30 seconds if we just stick to Japanese. In casual situations, no problem, I am more than happy to have such conversations and do so most all of the time. Although there are exceptions, like the story I related above but that was not about Japanese/English, I just wanted to sit quietly and watch the game.
Maybe they would prefer the interaction to take place in English because it’s easier for them. Maybe they similarly want to practice English. Maybe it’s uncomfortable or awkward for them to listen to you struggle. A badge thing won’t overcome any of those.
Idk. I don’t personally enjoy people talking to me just to practice English. I wouldn’t want to do the same to anyone else. I prefer for my spontaneous interactions to have importance outside of language gain, and when that’s the case it doesn’t matter what language we speak. Any interaction for the sake of language gain I prefer to keep to platforms where that’s the expectation like hello talk or a language exchange.
There’s all sorts of people out there and I’m sure a good chunk of them wouldn’t mind really. But, there are also people like me out there who I guess wouldn’t really appreciate this sort of thing. Just keep that in mind I guess.
I hope OP’s lanyard gets noticed and they have lots of opportunities to speak Japanese.
However, as someone who has worked in customer service; please don’t say “すみません、ここを見てください” to store staff and other people who are working. I know I’m being a bit of a downer, but those people have a job to do and don’t neccesarily have the time to slowly speak Japanese to help you study.
If I could recommend a good place to use it, I would say trains. Aside from places where foreigners are rare, they are the only place that Japanese people will regularly start a random conversation with me.
But… talking/carrying on a conversation on a train is frowned upon and considered quite rude in Japan. Good way to get some Obaasan to tell you to be quiet. Which I guess could count as striking up a conversation
Interesting, in 25 years I have very rarely experienced/seen this. Maybe twice.
Except… on a last, or near to last, train heading out of somewhere like Shinjuku or Shibuya, it can be unavoidable. Although I have seen arguments and even an occasional fight break out over it. We call it the Chuo-Sobu-sen Fight Club. Was sitting right in the middle of one a few months ago that would not have looked out of place in a Matrix movie.
Just to be clear: My intention is not to make everyone I talk to a Japanese teacher. I would have put the sentence "Please correct my mistakes“ on the badge if that was my goal. But I didn’t want to demand anything from anyone, so I deliberately opted against that.
My intention is rather to default to Japanese and make clear that most of the time, I DO understand them and if I look baffled, that’s normal and they don’t have to worry, they just need to wait for a few seconds until I make clear to them, if I do understand them or it’s above my level.
In my past experience in Japan – and I have been there for 4 months overall – I felt that people I talked to in Japanese felt very quickly like they had to help me with body language and English.
So quite the opposite of what many of your fear happened: Many times I made staff struggle because they thought I do not speak any Japanese other then a few words. So they didn’t even try to express what they were saying in simpler or slower Japanese, which I would have probably understood.
If they had only known, I think it would have made the whole interaction much smoother. And that’s exactly what the badge is supposed to help with. I’ll have to wait and see if it works, of course. But I‘m not seeing random people as my teachers. I’m trying to help them understand how they can make sure I understand them without having to embarrass themselves by trying to speak English, which many people did not like or be able to speak in my experience.
I think in these situations a ゆっくり日本語でもいい* or something similar (maybe even something more formal, if you want, but I don’t know how good your spoken Japanese is) would do wonders and be easier and less awkward, because it’ll explicitly tell them that you’re also fine with Japanese without them having to read the badge and interpret what you mean.
*) Roughly “slow Japanese is also fine” to bring across that they don’t have to speak English if they don’t want to. Caveat: I just made up that phrase because it’s what I’d say. Maybe it’s completely wrong, I still feel like a beginner after all those years. Others might have a better idea. The point is to use your words.
Huh, I’ve only been living here for 5 years and it happens to me all the time whenever I’m in Tokyo.
It’s entirely Obaasans who start these conversations with me. I’m not sure how you identify but maybe it’s a gendered thing? Or maybe I just look like a tourist still
I‘ll try both ways. But at least I have the badge now. My hope is that people will notice without me having to say anything. And it could also be an icebreaker to start conversations, because they immediately have a topic to approach me with and know that I‘m in Japan to talk. Who knows, we‘ll see. I’ll let you know how it goes!
