Language in Japan: Japanese, English Signs and Phrases That Help

A stranger holds out a ticket at a station and you want to ask where the platform is, or a cook behind a counter hands you a bowl and waits for your reaction. These are the moments when a few Japanese words matter. Japanese is the language of the country, and the handful of phrases that follow cover most of what a traveler needs: greetings, asking the way, asking a price and saying the food is good.

What language is spoken in Japan?

Japanese is the national language of Japan, and Japan is the only country where it holds that status. Around 123 million people spoke it in 2020. Outside the country it lives on mostly in communities with a long-established Japanese diaspora, in parts of Micronesia, Brazil, Peru, the United States and Taiwan.

Standard Japanese, called hyojungo, is based on the Tokyo dialect. It is taught in schools and understood by people throughout the country, so what you learn from a phrasebook works from one city to the next. The basis of the standard language was not always Tokyo. It moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region, modern Tokyo, in the early modern period, which is one reason Kyoto and Osaka speakers still carry a distinct pride in their own way of talking.

Three writing systems on every sign

Japanese people use three scripts side by side: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Kanji are the characters borrowed from Chinese, and waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language from the Heian period onward. You will see all three on a single menu or street sign, which is why a page of Japanese text can look impenetrable at first glance.

Katakana is the script a traveler gains the most from. It is used mainly to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis, and loanwords from other languages are written in it (except those from Chinese, which are written in kanji). Learn to sound out katakana and a menu line such as a coffee or a beer starts to read like English spoken with a Japanese accent.

Reading station names in kanji

Railway names often compress two cities into two characters. The Keisei line takes its name from Tokyo and Narita, the Keihan line from Kyoto and Osaka, and the Suigun line from Mito and Koriyama. Once you know the trick, a name on a map or a train front begins to make sense: you are reading the first character of each city, joined together.

The same logic appears at sea. The Kanpu ferry takes its name from Shimonoseki and Busan, the port in South Korea it connects. Spotting these abbreviations is a small pleasure of getting around, and a useful one when the romanized signs run out.

Sounds, vowels and politeness

Japanese has only five basic vowels: a, i, u, e and o. That makes pronunciation friendlier than many languages, since each vowel keeps one sound. The one trap is length. The difference between a short and a long vowel can change a word entirely, as with shojo and shojo with a long o, which mean very different things. Say your vowels cleanly and hold the long ones.

The language also carries levels of politeness: teineigo (polite), sonkeigo (respectful) and kenjogo (humble). A visitor is not expected to master them. The polite forms in the phrases below are the right ones to use with shop staff, hotel clerks and strangers. Counting has its own habit too, with special counter words: two bottles of beer is biiru nihon, and the counter for nights of a stay is haku or paku.

Is English widely spoken?

Japanese is what you will hear and read almost everywhere, so plan on making yourself understood with simple words, a smile and a little help from technology. The tourism side of the country has made efforts for foreign visitors: the Japan National Tourism Organization offers tourist brochures in English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, French and Thai.

What helps when words fail

The tourism organization points to VoiceTra, a free multilingual speech translation application made for travel conversations. You speak into the phone and it returns the sentence in Japanese, which you can show to a ticket seller, a waiter or a hotel clerk. It is useful when you need more than a phrase, such as asking about a missed connection or describing a dish you cannot eat.

Paper helps as much as an app. A brochure in English at an information desk gives you the names of places in the spelling you will meet on signs, and pointing at a printed name is a time-honored way to be understood. Keep an address or a station name written in Japanese on your phone, so you can show it rather than pronounce it.

Loanwords as a shortcut

Many everyday words in Japanese come from other languages and are written in katakana, which is why learning that script is a good choice for travelers. A word you read aloud slowly may turn out to be one you already know. This works best with food, drinks and objects you see around you.

When you do speak, keep sentences short and say one thing at a time. Clear vowels, a polite tone and a patient pace go further than a long sentence delivered fast. Pair the words with gestures and a written name, and most small exchanges work out.

If you want to learn before you leave

The Japan Foundation offers a free-to-explore learning platform called JF Japanese e-Learning Minato, with many self-study courses. It also runs Hirogaru, a website that promotes learning Japanese based on your interests, which suits someone who would rather start from food, anime or travel than from a grammar chapter.

For those who get hooked, the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test is offered twice a year, with five levels of exams. A trip is a good reason to start, and even a few evenings of study make menus and signs less opaque.

Which phrases help?

A short list of greetings, a way to get attention and two questions will carry you through most of a trip. The Japan National Tourism Organization lists these, and they are worth saying aloud a few times before landing.

Japanese	Meaning
Ohayo gozaimasu	Good morning
Konnichiwa	Good afternoon
Konbanwa	Good evening
Sumimasen	Excuse me (to get someone’s attention)
Gomen nasai	I am sorry
Wakarimasen	I don’t understand
Oishii	It’s delicious
Tanoshii	It’s fun, it’s nice

Getting attention and saying sorry

Sumimasen does a lot of work. Gomen nasai is the plain apology for a bump or a mistake. Between the two, you have the polite openings that make a request land well.

Say it with a smile and reach for your phone or your written address. It signals that you are trying, and the person talking to you often switches to gestures or slower words.

Asking where and how much

Put the name of a place in front of Doko desuka and you have a question for a station, a restroom or a temple. Add the word for the thing and the question is complete: the structure is that simple. Ikura desuka, how much is it, works at a market stall, a souvenir counter or a shop where a price tag is missing.

Answers may come in Japanese numbers, so hold up your phone and let the person type or show the figure. Counting words matter here too, since Japanese uses counters that change with what is counted.

Greetings through the day, and praise for the food

Ohayo gozaimasu is the morning greeting, Konnichiwa takes over for the afternoon and Konbanwa for the evening. Use them with hotel staff, shopkeepers and neighbors at a guesthouse breakfast table.

Oishii is the word to say when a bowl of noodles or a skewer from a market stall is good, and cooks are glad to hear it. Tanoshii, it’s fun or it’s nice, suits a day out, a festival or a walk. Two words of praise cost nothing and often earn a smile.

Good to know before you go

Keep the phrases in a note on your phone, along with the names of your hotel and next stations written in Japanese, so you can show them instead of pronouncing them. Download VoiceTra before you leave. On the road, a polite tone and a pause before answering go further than perfect pronunciation.

Sources

Japan National Tourism Organization, the language, English signage, phrases (https://www.japan.travel/en/plan/japanese-language/), checked October 11, 2026
Wikipedia, Japanese language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language), checked October 11, 2026
Wikivoyage, Japanese phrasebook (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Japanese_phrasebook), checked October 11, 2026