This is mostly out of curiousity since I speak Japanese, but I’d also like to know since my sister also lives in Japan and does not speak Japanese. She often runs into issues communicating with people over the phone, even places claiming to offer English support. I saw a lost recently on one of the Japan travel subs where the tourist broke an ankle, and commenters were recommending they call 119. So it got me curious enough to ask about people’s personal experiences.
A quick google shows that 119 services are available in 17 languages, but I’m wondering if the interpreters are usually Japanese native speakers communicating in their secondary language, or native speakers of the foreign language. And in either case, how the communication aspect of the situation was. If anyone has any personal experiences, I’d be interested in hearing about them!
20 comments
Luckily I never had to use it, but when I first came to Japan and my Japanese was not good yet, my company told me if I ever need to call 119 by myself to just repeat my address and the word ambulance. That was easy enough to memorize even with limited language ability.
I’ve had to call 119 several times (elderly in-laws) and I just tell them in Japanese that I’m gaikokujin and they slow right down and use really simple language, but I’ve never tried to speak to them in English.
They are pretty good and they will insist you use English instead of Japanese.
Just had an emergency drill with the fire dept. yesterday. They said if you start babbling in English they’ll put an English speaker on the line (subject to availability)
I called 119 twice and both times they put on some sort of interpreter onto the call so it was like a 3 way call. Both times the man sounded like a native English speaker to me.
I tried to call the police for an hour. Couldn’t get it to work and someone died because of that. There were at least 10 Japanese people with me there. Police showed up after 2 weeks. Because of rotting flesh.
I sort of did. Sort of as in I spoke enough, but I was in so much pain and stress, I didn’t want to deal with a language barrier. I was living in Kobe at the time and I asked if they can get an interpreter. Kind of a mistake. They told me they would call me, I called them back after 10 minutes and just said hey can i just tell you the symptoms in Japanese, this is taking too long, and they told me nah fam, you gotta wait. Waited another 5 minutes, to basically be told we are getting you an ambulance right away.
Second time I had to call 119 I did it all in Japanese, I just told them my symptoms, said I had kidney stones before so it might be it, I live near a hospital so i can just walk there myself. They basically said lol, no, we’re sending you an ambulance right now.
Basically, they can get interpreters (and I will note the interpreter sounded like a native speaker), but I was better off doing it in japanese.
Your sisters point on english services being spotty is sadly so true. Last year I had a complicated tax situation come up and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to explain it well in Japanese or I would get lost in tax terminology. I tried calling the tax office of Tokyo’s english support line and realized really quickly this guy has zero idea what I said in English and just switched to japanese to be told, go call immigrations I guess? Called immigrations english support line and immediately realized yeah this woman also doesn’t speak any english, so just spoke in Japanese and got told to call my city hall. At that point, I got so fed up that I just called the main lines for everything. Tldr: using english support lines made me realize english support is a joke in Japan, and made me confident in my Japanese. 10/10 would recommend for building confidence LOL
I had to cause I couldn’t walk after hurting my foot and when I asked to be put onto an interpreter (cause ya know, when in pain, no think good in any language), they said they didn’t have one in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. Got through it though and got an ambo out to me.
They patch in an interpreter. Works fine.
Actually had to call one just 2 days ago. It was nighttime and the operator had some broken english so it kinda worked out. I used this page provided by the US Embassy to say some basic phrases that helped https://jp.usembassy.gov/services/calling-for-help/
I’ve called twice.
On Mt Iwate in Iwate prefecture I called and we needed the assistance of an interpreter. I had forgotten, or maybe never learned, that 119 is available in English. My Japanese companion stayed with the person in need while I hiked to the top of a ridge to get cell reception. I only spoke basic Japanese so I could only share the location and approximate age of the person. The operator was asking a lot of technical questions about the person’s state and location which I don’t know how to answer in Japanese, so the operator patched in an interpreter. It was obvious that the interpreter was not Japanese and spoke English significantly better than Japanese.
The other time was in Tokyo. We started off in Japanese but I said “ummmm” and the operator switched to near perfect English with a slight Australian accent. The way the operator spoke in Japanese was native but when she switched to English the tone, inflections and phrases were like that of a native English speaker as well.
I woke up one night literally screaming in pain (turn out to be gallstones) and called 119 and just kept repeating my address and “ambulance”. The initial person repeated my address and said “okay” and quickly got an English speaker on the line. They did a very good job of helping me.
Yeah it’s confusing they ask you a bunch of questions like is it narrow, is there alot of space, what’s the condition of the person, and they come.
I had to call last summer, and it was all in Japanese. I can speak fine, but I had just fainted and came back around, so my head was swimming. I initially requested English, but the operator said it wasn’t possible. Luckily within a minute or so I regained my language ability. This was in Tokyo around 3am.
They have English interpreters online.
I know others who did not have this issue and had no problem in English and in Korean, but my experience was awful!! Called for a medical emergency, and they asked some questions I couldn’t understand, and as I was, you know, having a medical emergency, I wasn’t about to grab my dictionary and start looking up the gaps in my vocabulary. I asked if I could talk to an English speaker, as my Japanese level wasn’t enough to keep up.
The guy responded by saying (in Japanese) “What? You’re speaking Japanese now though? You can speak.” He went on and asked some more things I didn’t understand, so I asked for English service again and he ignored me and FINALLY took down for my address……and told me there was a hospital nearby I should go to. I was on the floor with severe stomach pain and couldn’t stand!!! He finally said he’d send an ambulance and hung up. Just don’t have a medical emergency on a Sunday, apparently? 🙄
I had to use it last year when i woke up around 3 am in excruciating pain and vomiting ( spoiler, my kidney was apparently swelling)
I had to call twice cause i was sobbing too much and even then it was hard because they were only japanese i pretty much just repeated ‘help’ in japanese and then reading my address from google maps lmao
that worked though, I think it was just a ‘ ok this person is in _trouble_ we’ll figure it out when we get there’
and then after they got me to the hospital, even while in pain, basically communicated through the papago translation app
I called an ambulance not a month into living in Japan. I had the single worst migraine of my life. I was vomiting due to the nausea caused by the head pain and started seeing blood in the vomit.
Called 119, and was able to say enough Japanese to get them to my place.
I prefaced the conversation If I could talk in English, but apparently, they couldn’t accommodate me. It may have been because it was 1 a.m., but not sure.
I speak really simple Japanese. I also didnt know that there was a 119 number, so I actually dialed 110 asking for an ambulance. They got me that ambulance.
Side note to this, I was snowboarding and went down hard on part of the resort that was usually a road. My Android phone thought I was in an accident and went nuts and said it was going to dial 911 if I didn’t respond.
Does anyone know if that even works over here? Would it try and dial 911? or would it actually dial 119? I like the option, but seems silly if it can’t even call the right number.