So ive been learning japanese for a good while now and have wanted to put a goal for myself. Im traveling to japan next year but i dont know what is the bottom level of japanese that i need to know in order to be able to travel like i would the US for example(not a native english speaker).
I know there is the JLPT but thats not realy an option and either way i dont realy know what my level should be.
So what would you think is a good milestone for me to try and achieve (in terms of speaking, reading, etc.)?
5 comments
Hmm to me the key things are comfort in navigating and reading for hotels, restaurants, and transport.
So:
* buying a room at a hotel and handling payment there, from looking at the list of amenities and reading it to talking to the desk staff (who may not speak english if you’re out in the boonies) and communicating things like checkout times, when the pool is open, and how to get a taxi to your train station
* Buying and negotiating train tickets including schedules, seat selection, etc. Ability to read the train schedule, and talk with a gate agent and understand their replies.
* Reading menus at restaurants, ordering and understanding restaurant language, including rare but important things like “we don’t have any staff who speak enough english to seat you” or “we’re out of ramen today”
* Lastly, map reading and giving and understanding directions in taxis and from police or people on the street
Sure you **can** travel in japan with far less, but your question was **to travel like you do in the US** where you seem to be if not fluent then close to it.
TLDR you can travel with less, but the ideal is conversational ability with all the terms and situations of travel, and enough reading ability including kanji to understand maps, hotel amenities, train timetables, and probably enough ability to look up kanji you don’t know to fill in any further missing reading ability.
Get yourself a good phrase book that has good sections on hotels, trains, taxes, buses, medical, restaurants, etc.. Learn the words and phrases that you would need in these situations. Concentrate on the hiragana, katakana, and Kanji for these sentences. This can be a good start and also remember, Google is your friend. If you do not have an international internet plan, you can rent a local portable router to connect to the internet wherever you may go (that also has signal). If you need a wifi router, for short trips look at Japan Wireless wifi and for l9nger than 30 days look at Sakura Mobile. I used Sakura Mobile for my trips.
N5-N4 level is sufficient enough to solo travel and handle just about every simple conversation you could hope for. You might even be able to solo an izakaya and simply do talk to locals. Google translate can do the rest.
N3 minimum for any real conversation over basic question and answering. N2 is generally recommended for most white collar jobs. N1 is a personal pat on the back – I guess most Japanese wouldn’t pass it
One of the hallmarks of the [B1 level](https://jfstandard.jp/pdf/2_self_assessment_eng.pdf) in the CEFR system is “can handle most situations that arise while traveling.”
I think other people have listed some really good “can do” statements you should be aiming for. Looking at descriptions of the B1 level can give you an big picture view of what you should be aiming for and looking at the A1 and A2 levels can give you a sense for milestones along the way.
I would say for now, you should just proceed with learning Japanese as normal. I’d recommend getting a tutor through something like iTalki to practice speaking. A few months before you go, start working on some situation based role play scenarios
Hitchhiking off this post, would it be better to not use Japanese at all if I’m not confident? Like sure I can start conversations with sentences that I know how to put together but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to understand their answers to continue the conversation.