Hello! I am planning a trip to Japan but have some concerns. I have auditory processing disorder, which makes communicating hard due to my brain not processing human speech very well.
While I am learning to speak some basic Japanese for the trip, I won’t really be able to translate anything said back to me and I’m worried about coming across rude or unknowingly breaking some kind of etiquette.
My plan was to wear a lanyard that said something like “I don’t speak fluent Japanese, I have trouble hearing, sorry for the inconvenience” or something along those lines, but I’m not sure if something like this would be considered rude if I just kept pointing to it when someone tries to talk to me?
(I was also considering putting the seahorse symbol on the lanyard, but since I’m not deaf I’m also worried if that would be appropriating that symbol. I know there’s a hard of hearing symbol but all research I did said it was only used for cars so idk)
Any and all advice is very welcome! Thanks in advance.
1 comment
As a foreigner you’re not expected to speak any japanese. It’ll be very normal to them if they speak to you and you don’t understand anything, as is the case with 95% of tourists.