I moved in to Tokyo 3 months ago. For a good couple of times already, I find myself in a situation where I need to call various Japanese services to get assistance. Sometimes stuff in the apartment breaks, sometimes I need to call the bank for something etc etc.
I find these calls to be a real problem, as my Japanese is nowhere near conversational, and over the phone there is no way to use a translator app. Also, phone appears to be the only way of contacting official services in Japan, with no text fallback.
What are possible solutions to this problem? Like, right now I need to make a call about my apartment, and it's an entire problem for me, I'm trying to rehearse what I'm gonna say, but I have no way of anticipating their reply.
Past times I had a friend help me with some calls, but I can't rely on them forever, I feel bad repeatedly asking for help.
I'm curious if anyone else has been in such a situation and how did you solve it?
by sectional343